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FOUR PHASES OF 
AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

FEDERALISM-DEMOCRACY— IMPERIALISM— EXPANSION 



JOHN BASSETT MOORE, LL.D., 

rROFBSSOK OF INTERNATIONAL LAW, COLUMBIA UNIVBKSITY, NEW YORK ; SOMBTIMB 

ASSISTANT SF.CRRTARY OP STATE OF TUB UNITED STATES ; AUTHOR OF A 

DIGEST OF INTHRNATIONAL LAW, OP A HISTORY AND DIGEST OF 

INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATIONS, OF "AMERICAN DIPLOMACY, 

ITS SPIRIT AND ACHIEVEMENTS," Bl'C. 



BALTIMORE 

THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS 

1912 



X 

^ 






COPYEIGHT, 1912, 
BY 

THE JOHNS HOPKmS PKESS 



^^ 



4Ci.A3or>3rs 



TO 

J. A. M 



IN EEMEMBEANCE OF 

HIS FONDNESS FOB POLITICAL HISTORY 

AND HIS LOVE OF THE TRUTH 



FOREWOED 

The four lectures embraced in the present 
volume were delivered at the Johns Hopkins 
University, in April last, on the foundation 
established there by James Schouler, lawyer 
and historian, for lectures in history and 
political science. Their object is to give, not 
a chronological detail of related or unre- 
lated incidents, but rather a general survey of 
important movements, explained in the light of 
the causative facts, whether these be particular 
acts, or human traits and tendencies disclosed 
by men acting in the mass or individually. 
This is, in the writer's opinion, the historian's 
primary task. To frame indictments, to con- 
demn and exculpate, to distribute censures and 
pronounce encomiums, on the strength of pre- 
conceptions as to what ought to have taken 
place, belongs to the historical moralist, the no- 
bility of whose aims is supposed to justify him 
in exacting from the past, as the price of its 
exoneration, an anticipatory conformity to his 
own views. The function of the historian, if 
apparently less exalted, is more truthful. It is 



6 FOSETTOED 

also more difficult of performance, and requires 
a wider range of tliouglit. of investigation and 
of sympathies. History is the drama of the 
ages reduced to wiiting. The historian, like 
the di-amatist, may also be and in a qualified 
sense necessarily is a moralist, since every pic- 
ture of life conveys a lesson of some kind. But 
his first duty is that of exposition. He deals 
in realities. His chief end is to recreate the 
past, so that the reader may live in it and, 
seeing things as they were, understand things 
as they are. 

J. B. :^J:. 

OCTOEER 21, 1911. 



CONTENTS 

LECTURE T 
Federalism .... 



LECTURE II 
Democracy 47 

LECTURE III 
Imperialism 96 

LECTURE IV 
Expansion 147 

Index. 205 



LECTURE I 

Federalism 

History, as popularly conceived and even as 
sometimes written, may be described as the 
philosophy of hindsight, devoted to the main- 
tenance of one or more of the following pro- 
positions: First, that whatever is was inevit- 
able; secondly, that whatever is was wisely 
foreordained; thirdly, that whatever is is for 
the best; and fourthly, that whatever is is for 
the worst. Conformably to these points ofi 
view, the proponents of the several theories 
may be classed as fatalists, as providentialists, 
as optimists, and as pessimists. 

That these preconceptions, as popularly en- 
tertained, have had, still have, and will con- 
tinue to have an important and at times a 
decisive influence upon the course of events, is 
a fact which should be regarded as almost self- 
evident. The conduct of a people under given 
circumstances must always be powerfully af- 
fected by the view which it takes of its mission 
and destiny. If the prevalent tendency be 
fatalistic, there will naturally be a ready sub- 



10 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

mission to ills which a more energetic and less 
acquiescent frame of mind would lead the pub- 
lic to resist and correct. If the popular con- 
viction be providentlalist, we may expect the 
general conduct to be characterized by an ener- 
getic self-confidence, with a tendency, perhaps 
often unconscious, towards the aggressive and 
occasionally unscrupulous removal of obstacles 
that stand in the way of what is conceived to 
be desirable. The same tendency, although it 
may sometimes be observable, is much less 
marked in the optimist, whose genial disposi- 
tion leads him to minimize and even to over- 
look the obstructions that lie in his path as 
well as the evils that flourish around him. 
He is tolerant of the growth and accumulation 
of unwholesome conditions, because he does not 
believe that they can produce eventual and 
permanent harm. His antithesis is found in 
the pessimist, who, because he can see no per- 
manent good in anything, logically assumes to- 
wards the transactions of his time a negative 
attitude, and looks upon government as some- 
thing to be tolerated but not to be encouraged. 
With all these phases of the popular mind, 
the historian is obliged to deal. He must de- 
tect their existence and observe their opera- 



FEDERALISM H 

tion. But lie ceases to be a trustworthy guide 
when he identifies himself with any of the 
classes whose views and tendencies have been 
described. In proportion as he does this, he 
ceases to be a historian and becomes merely a 
moralist. 

The primary function of the historian is that 
of an interpreter of events. In order that he 
may discharge this function, he must deal with 
facts as causes rather than as ultimate verities. 
He should, first of all, tell us what happened, 
and why it came to happen; and it is only after 
he has discharged this duty, that he is in a 
position to assume the role of a monitor. It is 
a notorious fact that important determinations, 
profoundly affecting the course of history, have 
been based upon erroneous assumptions of 
fact or of right or perhaps of both. False in- 
formation and false legal conceptions may have 
been the decisive factors. Nevertheless, the 
false information and the false legal concep- 
tions are, for the purposes of the historian, 
the causative facts with which he must pri- 
marily deal ; for it is upon the causative rather 
than the ultimate facts that an intelligent con- 
ception of national character, — of its strength 
and its weakness, of its power of self-restraint 



12 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

and its impatience of control, of its dispositions 
and desires, — can be formed. When the his- 
torian has discharged this function, and by cor- 
rectly interpreting the past has furnished a 
clue to the possibilities or probabilities of the 
future, he may properly assume the function of 
a teacher of morality, and upon the strength of 
ultimate verities, gleaned from sources which 
were unknown or not open to inspection, ad- 
monish the people of their liability to error, of 
their mistakes, misdeeds and shortcomings. 
Reverse the process, and we banish from his- 
tory the human, the dramatic, the moving ele- 
ments, and suppress and exclude from our es- 
timation the currents of popular feeling, the 
workings of the human spirit, which so often 
override and sweep away the barriers created 
by political, legal and moral instruction. 

Read in the light of the causative facts, it 
may be affirmed that there is no people whose 
history is more consistently characterized by 
the display of certain dominant traits than is 
that of the people of the United States. Com- 
posed in the main of adventurous and enter- 
prising settlers from the countries of Europe, 
and accustomed to the risks and dangers that 
attend the colonization and development of a 



FEDERALISM 13 

vast continent previously uninhabited by civil- 
ized men, they have ever exhibited a love of 
liberty and a devotion to popular government, 
combined with a restless energy, a self-reliance, 
a directness of action, and a sense of power 
which have determined their conduct under all 
the various circumstances that have arisen in 
the course of their national career. 

It was to be expected that a people possess- 
ing these characteristics would not indefinitely 
continue to submit to the old colonial system. 
The British colonial system was not worse than 
the colonial systems of the other European 
powers. It was indeed in some respects the 
most liberal of all of them; and, under what 
Burke called the policy of " wise and salutary 
neglect," the British colonists had enjoyed a 
large measure of political freedom. In reality 
the sense of political liberty served only to 
render the system of commercial restriction 
the more insupportable. This system was 
based upon the principle of monopoly, which 
universally governed the trade relations of 
colonies in those days. With slight exceptions, 
the trade of the colony was restricted to ex- 
changes with the mother country. The ships 
of the mother country were the only vessels 



14 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

permitted to enter the colonial parts, and tlie 
principal colonial products were allowed to be 
exported only to the mother country. 

The American Eevolution was the formal and 
final protest of the people of the United States 
against this system. It is true that when, as 
the result of measures taken by committees of 
correspondence and other local bodies, the Con- 
tinental Congress first assembled in Philadel- 
phia on September 5, 1774, public opinion had 
not advanced to the contemplation of measures 
of separation; but, after Lexington and Con- 
cord, events moved rapidly. The crisis was 
hastened by the royal speech to Parliament of 
October 26, 1775, the text of which reached 
Boston and Philadelphia early in the follow- 
ing year. In this speech the king, avowing his 
belief that the leaders in America had, while 
protesting their loyalty, been engaged in a con- 
spiracy against him and in preparing for a 
general revolt, stated that he had increased his 
naval forces and greatly augmented his land 
forces, and declared his purpose to " put a 
speedy end " to the disorders '' by the most 
decisive exertions." Coincidently with the re- 
ception of this speech, Norfolk, the most con- 
siderable and most flourishing commercial 



FEDERALISM 15 

town in Virginia, was destroyed by Lord Dun- 
more, entailing a loss estimated at three hun- 
dred thousand pounds sterling. 

The significance of these events was read and 
magnified in the blaze of light flashed across 
the sky by Paine 's Common Sense, which, as 
Dr. Rush declared, * ' burst forth from the press 
with an effect that has been rarely produced by 
types and paper, in any age or country." 
Richard Henry Lee, m a letter to Washington, 
owned himself convinced by its arguments ' ' of 
the necessity of separation." Washington, 
writing to Joseph Reed, January 31, 1776, said: 
'*A few more of such flaming arguments as were 
exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to 
the sound doctrine and unanswerable reason- 
ing contained in the pamphlet Common Sense, 
will not leave numbers at a loss to decide upon 
the propriety of a separation." The argu- 
ment of Paine was not, however, solely an ap- 
peal for separation ; it was also a call to union. 
" The sun," declared Paine in a burst of elo- 
quence, " never shone on a cause of greater 
worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a county, 
a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent of 
at least one-eighth part of the habitable globe. 
'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an 



Ig AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

age; posterity are virtually involved in the 
contest, and will be more or less affected even 
to the end of time, by the proceedings now. 
Now is the seed-time of continental union, faith 
and honor." 

Even before the formal act of separation, 
the Continental Congress had begun to act as 
if it represented a new nation. Although its 
powers were wholly undefined, it organized it- 
self for the conduct of foreign as well as of 
domestic affairs, and proceeded to appoint 
diplomatic representatives to the European 
powers. The Declaration of Independence was 
made by " the Eepresentatives of the United 
States of America, in General Congress As- 
sembled, ... in the name and by authority of 
the good people " of the colonies; and it de- 
clared that the ' ' united colonies ' ' were and of 
right ought to be '' free and independent 
states," and that as such they had " full power 
to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, 
establish commerce, and to do all other acts and 
things which independent states may of right 
do." 

Nor was the Congress backward in asserting 
the independence which it had declared and 
the rights which were conceived to be incident 



FEDERALISM 17 

to that condition. Early in the autumn of 
1776 it was reported that Portugal had resolved 
upon the exclusion of American vessels from 
her ports. In this conjuncture Congress found 
an adviser whose views were not lacking 
either in energy or in imagination. Among the 
most active agents of the United States in for- 
eign affairs at that time was the author of 
Le Manage de Figaro, Beaumarchais, who, 
although generally known only as a dramatist, 
was not devoid of skill in political and diplo- 
matic intrigue. Beaumarchais, perhaps in- 
stinctively thinking of stage effects, advised 
Congress to declare war against Portugal and 
send a fleet to the Brazils. Spain, long resent- 
ful against Portugal, whom she desired to re- 
conquer, would, he argued, be interested, and 
might be engaged to make a like declaration, 
and, thus becoming in effect an ally of the 
United States, would open her American ports 
to their armed vessels and to their privateers 
with prizes made upon the Portuguese. Eng- 
land would then be obliged to go to Portugal's 
assistance, and France, while aiding Spain 
under the Family Compact, would also have an 
excuse for opening her ports to the Americans.^ 

1 Wharton 's Dip. Cor. Am. Rev., II, 146. See, also, pp. 148, 
188. 

o 



18 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

This was a scheme ambitious enough to satisfy 
the most enterprising disposition, but the Con- 
gress did not shrink from its contemplation; 
for, on December 30, 1776, the commissioners 
to the courts of France and Spain were directed 
to consult together and prepare a treaty of 
commerce and alliance similar to that first pro- 
posed to France, in which it should be pro- 
vided that if Spain would join the United States 
in the war against Great Britain, the United 
States would aid Spain in reducing the town 
and harbor of Pensacola, and, in case it should 
be true that Portugal had insultingly expelled 
American vessels from her ports, or confiscated 
any of them, would also declare war against 
the Portuguese king, if that measure should be 
' ' agreeable to and supported by the Courts of 
France and Spain. ' ' ^ Franklin, who summar- 
ized these instructions as meaning in effect 
that the United States, in case France and 
Spain would enter into the war, would ' ' assist 
the former in the conquest of the British sugar 
islands, and the latter in the conquest of Por- 
tugal," quietly remarked, in a letter to one of 
his fellow-commissioners in France : ' ' You 
will see by the date of the resolution relating 

1 Journals of Continental Congress, VI, 1054, 1057. 



FEDEEALISM 19 

to Portugal . . . that the Congress was stout 
in the midst of their difficulties." ' 

As the war proceeded, with its mingled vic- 
tories and defeats, the necessity was felt for 
a closer and more definite association. The 
capture of Burgoyne and his army at Saratoga 
led directly and immediately to the conclusion, 
in February, 1778, of the treaties of commerce 
and alliance with France. These treaties were 
designed not only to compel the acknowledg- 
ment of independence by Great Britain, but 
also to assure the continuance of that inde- 
pendence when once it had been established. 
They looked to the future as well as to the 
present, and brought a new sense of respon- 
sibility as well as of power. 

In the same year there were formulated the 
Articles of Confederation — a loose bond of 
union, but an important step in the federal 
direction. 

It was not until March 2, 1781, when the 
ratification of the last of the thirteen States 
had been secured, that Congress assembled 
under this new form of government; but, fact 
running ahead of formula — a phenomenon 

1 Franklin to Arthur Lee, March 21, 1777, Wharton, Dip. Cor. 
Am. Eev., II, 297. 



20 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

often produced by pressure of circumstances — 
Congress had already taken steps to assure a 
more efficient conduct of foreign affairs. For 
this the Articles of Confederation did not 
specially provide. Writing to John Jay, in 
July, 1780, John Lovell, a member of Congress 
form Massachusetts, said: " There is said to be 
a Committee of Foreign Affairs; each member 
is loaded with a variety of business ; two have 
amiable wives near Philadelphia; I miss the 
gentlemen, therefore, frequently." In a letter 
to Franklin in the following October, Lovell 
stated that he was the only member of the 
committee then attending the Congress, and 
that the committee had not had a secretary or 
a clerk since Thomas Paine 's resignation. In 
these circumstances a committee was appointed 
to consider a plan for a Department of For- 
eign Aif airs. Its report was presented to Con- 
gress on January 10, 1781, and was adopted. 
The report recited that " the extent and the 
rising power " of the United States entitled 
them " to a place among the great potentates 
of Europe," while their " political and com- 
mercial interests ' ' pointed out * ' the propriety 
of cultivating with them a friendly correspon- 
dence and connexion;" and that, in order to 



FEDERALISM 21 

render such an intercourse advantageous, there 
must be " a competent knowledge of the in- 
terests, views, relations, and systems of those 
potentates." In order to attain these ends and 
insure the regularity of correspondence, it 
was recommended that " a fixed and perma- 
nent office for the department of foreign af- 
fairs ought forthwith to be established, as a 
remedy against the fluctuations, the delay, and 
indecision " to which the existing method of 
managing foreign affairs was exposed. It was 
therefore resolved that an office for the depart- 
ment of foreign affairs should immediately be 
established, and that it should be administered 
by a Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Robert R. 
Livingston was appointed to this office. 

But, of all the acts which looked towards 
future union, none was more interesting or 
more important than the treaty by which the 
war was brought to a close. Not only was the 
independence of the United States acknowl- 
edged, but a settlement of boundaries was ob- 
tained which fairly startled all the world ex- 
cept the self-confident people to whom the con- 
cession was made. Reaching far to the North, 
then running southwesterly to the 45th parallel 
of North latitude and thence to the St. 



22 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

Lawrence Eiver, the line continued westerly 
through the middle of that river and the Great 
Lakes, till, by a northwesterly deflection, it 
reached the Lake of the Woods and the Missis- 
sippi Eiver. The Mississippi then became the 
boundary, until, at the 31st parallel of N. lati- 
tude, the dominions of Spain were reached on 
the South. The line was then drawn due East 
to the middle of the river Apalachicola or 
Catahouche, then along the middle of that river 
to its junction with the Flint Eiver, thence 
straight to the head of St. Mary's Eiver, and 
down the middle of the St. Mary's to the At- 
lantic Ocean. Besides acquiring this imperial 
domain, the people of the United States ob- 
tained an acknowledgment of their right to 
fish on the banks of Newfoundland and in the 
Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the liberty to take 
fish on the coasts of the British dominions in 
America, and to dry and cure fish in the un- 
settled bays, harbors and creeks of Nova 
Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador. 

There was, however, in the treaty another 
clause which, although it would not attract the 
special attention of the casual reader, was de- 
stined to exert an important influence upon the 
formation of the future federal union. When 



FEDERALISM 23 

the war of the revolution broke out and amic- 
able relations between Great Britain and her 
colonies were interrupted, large sums were 
naturally due from the inhabitants of the one 
country to those of the other for debts con- 
tracted in the usual course of trade. In these 
circumstances, some of the American States 
during the war passed acts of sequestration 
and confiscation, which provided that debts due 
to British subjects might be paid into the 
State treasuries, and that such payment should 
constitute an effectual answer to any suits which 
might afterwards be brought for their recov- 
ery. It was foreseen that, after the conclusion 
of peace, although the courts of the country 
would once more be open to British subjects, 
these statutes would serve as a bar to the re- 
covery of debts. In the negotiations at Paris, 
the British representatives coupled the ques- 
tion of the recovery of debts with that of com- 
pensation for the loyalists whose estates in 
America had been confiscated during the war. 
When these demands were first brought for- 
ward, Franklin and Jay answered that the 
matter was one that belonged exclusively to 
the several States. John Adams, on his ar- 
rival in Paris, announced a different opinion. 



24 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

He assumed bold national ground, WMle op- 
posing tlie compensation of the Tories, he de- 
clared that he had " no notion of cheating 
anybody;" that the question of paying debts 
and of compensating Tories were distinct ; and 
that he would agree that Congress should re- 
commend to the States the opening of their 
courts for the recovery of all just debts. 
When the treaty was made, it went farther. 
It did not recommend; it stipulated (Art. IV.) 
in positive terms '' that creditors on either side 
shall meet with no lawful impediment to the 
recovery of the full value, in sterling money, of 
all bona fide debts heretofore contracted." 
By this Article, power was assumed not only 
to annul the legislation of the States on the 
particular subject, but to annul it retroactively. 
In their report to Congress, the American plen- 
ipotentiaries, Adams, Franklin, Jay, and Henry 
Laurens, declared the opinion that it apper- 
tained solely to Congress, in whom exclusively 
were vested the rights of making war and 
peace, to pass acts against the subjects of a 
power with which the confederacy might be 
at war. In this opinion the Congress may be 
assumed to have concurred, since it ratified the 
treaty without amendment. 



FEDEEALISM 25 

When the stress and pressure of war were 
removed, the tendency towards federalism was 
naturally relaxed. The Articles of Confeder- 
ation, as is well known, were utterly inadequate 
to the purposes of a federal government, es- 
pecially in time of peace, when limitations of 
power were more likely to be strictly kept. As 
they did not operate directly upon the people, 
but only upon the States, they tended to con- 
firm the conception that the inhabitants of the 
various States, which were the successors of 
colonies previously separate and independent, 
had no common or national allegiance. The 
power, which Congress possessed under the 
Articles of Confederation, to make requisitions 
upon the States, was in effect only recommenda- 
tory. Each State levied its own duties, and 
made its own commercial regulations. From 
this condition of things, there resulted not 
only discord but also feebleness. The people 
of the United States were not slow to per- 
ceive this fact. Their efforts to form commer- 
cial agreements were frustrated by their in- 
ability to assure uniform action on the part 
of the several States. The government of the 
Confederation was unable to create and main- 
tain an army and navy. The frontiers re- 



26 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

mained undefended. Public credit was aban- 
doned, and loans contracted during the war 
remained undischarged. Commerce declined; 
the values of land decreased, private credit was 
bad, money was scarce and of uncertain value. 
Nor was this all ; the provisions of the treaty 
of peace remained unexecuted and ineffective. 
The treaty had looked to the co-operation of 
the Contracting Parties in obtaining from 
Spain the right or privilege of navigating the 
Mississippi Eiver, but the hope of co-operation 
proved to be illusory. Immediately after the 
peace, the Congress of the United States sent 
John Adams as minister to the Court of Lon- 
don, but the British Government did not deem 
it worth while reciprocally to send a minister 
to the United States, where there appeared to 
be no efficient national authority. When British 
creditors entered the courts of the several 
States and sought to recover their debts in 
conformity with the terms of the peace, the 
courts held themselves to be bound by the acts 
of their legislatures, and declined to give ef- 
fect to the stipulations of the treaty. Mean- 
while Great Britain refused to withdraw her 
forces from the United States, and continued to 
hold important posts as a guarantee for the 



FEDERALISM 27 

fulfillment of the obligations of the treaty, es- 
pecially with regard to the recovery of debts. 
In these circumstances the American people, 
casting local jealousies for the moment aside, 
advanced in a practical spirit to the assertion 
of the nationality which logically resulted from 
their separation from Great Britain. In the 
early days of the revolutionary movement, 
when government was beginning to dissolve, 
Patrick Henry is reported to have declared that 
he was ^' not a Virginian but an American," 
that *' all America " was '' thrown into one 
mass. ' ' ^ The need of concert was no less ur- 
gent in 1787. Government was again dis- 
solved. It was evident that independence could 
be saved from failure only by united action, 
definitely and permanently assured. Provision 
must be made and made at once for the com- 
mon defence, the preservation of public peace, 
the regulation of commerce, and the superin- 
tendence of foreign intercourse. 

Everyone is familiar with the encomium of 
Gladstone, that the Constitution of the United 
States is the most remarkable document ever 
proceeding at one stroke from the brain and 
purpose of man. But the most remarkable fea- 

1 Works of John Adams, II, 366-368. 



28 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

ture of this remarkable document is the direct- 
ness and completeness with which the framers 
performed their task. Having set out upon the 
path of federation, they did not occupy them- 
selves in devising half-way measures and cau- 
tious expedients, but sought to found and did 
found a truly national union. It is a common 
thing to extol the foresight and provident wis- 
dom of the Fathers; but, while this is alto- 
gether proper, those qualities are sometimes 
dwelt upon so exclusively as to cause us to lose 
sight of the influence of immediate conditions 
upon their labors and to be blind to peculiarly 
obvious historical facts. For instance, we con- 
stantly hear the desire expressed for the cre- 
ation of a court among nations " like the Su- 
preme Court of the United States," for the pur- 
pose of settling international differences and 
ensuring universal and permanent peace. The 
expression of such a wish carries with it a 
deserved tribute to the great and useful service 
daily rendered to the people of the United 
States by that exalted tribunal, but it evi- 
dently overlooks the rather serious episode of 
the war between the States as well as the cir- 
cumstance that the deliverance of the Supreme 
Court in the Dred Scott case was the logical 



FEDERALISM 29 

forerunner of that great convulsion. To say 
that the Fathers, had they been endowed with 
supernatural powers, might have foreseen and 
guarded against such unhappy contingencies, 
is to cast no reflection on their memory. It 
does, however, tend to show that they were 
subject to human limitations, and that their 
wisdom and foresight were chiefly employed in 
dealing directly and courageously with the con- 
ditions with which they were actually con- 
fronted. 

By the ** Articles of Confederation and Per- 
petual Union," as the Articles of Confedera- 
tion were officially styled, each State retained 
" its sovereignty, freedom and independence, 
and every power, jurisdiction and right " not 
'' expressly delegated to the United States in 
Congress assembled." The bond of connec- 
tion was described as a ' * firm league of friend- 
ship," for common defense, the security of 
liberties, and mutual and general welfare. The 
Congress was composed of not less than two 
nor more than seven delegates from each State, 
annually appointed in such manner as the 
legislature should direct; but these delegates 
were paid by the States and were subject to 
recall, and each State had but one vote in the 
Congress, 



30 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

The privileges and immunities of citizens in 
the several States were assured to the free in- 
habitants of each State ; privileges of interstate 
trade and intercourse were likewise accorded; 
the delivery-up of fugitives from justice was 
provided for; and it was stipulated that full 
faith and credit should be given in each State 
to the records, acts and judicial proceedings of 
the several States. On the other hand, al- 
though the several States were forbidden to 
send or to receive embassies or to enter into any 
conference, agreement, alliance or treaty with 
any foreign power, without the consent of Con- 
gress, or to lay any imposts or duties incon- 
sistent with the treaties already proposed to 
France and Spain, yet the regulation of com- 
merce and the laying of imposts and duties 
remained in other respects with the several 
States. It was in fact expressly provided that 
no treaty of commerce should be made where- 
by the legislatures of the respective States 
should be restrained from imposing such im- 
posts and duties on foreigners as their own 
people were subject to, or from prohibiting the 
exportation or importation of any species of 
goods or commodities whatsoever. 

There was granted to the Congress the ex- 



FEDEHALISM 31 

elusive power, subject to certain exceptions, to 
declare war and make peace, but, although the 
common expenses, including those of war, were 
to be defrayed out of a common fund supplied 
by the several States in certain proportions, the 
laying and collection of the taxes for the paying 
of such proportions were left altogether to the 
several States. The Congress was invested 
with exclusive power to regulate the alloy and 
value of metallic money; but the power to coin 
money was shared with the States, which also 
retained power to appoint regimental officers 
in the United States army. 

The executive power, such as it was, was 
lodged in the Congress, or, during its recess, in 
'*A Committee of the States," consisting of 
one delegate designated by Congress from each 
State. Judicial power there was none, except 
that Congress had power to appoint courts for 
the trial of piracies and felonies committed on 
the high seas and for the determination of ap- 
peals in cases of capture. Provision was made 
for the creation of special tribunals for the 
determination of disputes and differences be- 
tween the States concerning boundaries, juris- 
diction and other matters, but from the de- 
cisions of such tribunals. Congress itself was 
to be *' the last resort on appeal." 



32 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

Finally, in order that the powers of the Con- 
federation might not be intentionally or inad- 
vertently expanded, it was expressly provided 
that the Congress should " never engage in a 
war, nor grant letters of marque and reprisal in 
time of peace, nor enter into any treaties or al- 
liances, nor coin money, nor regulate the value 
thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expenses 
necessary for the defense and welfare of the 
United States, or any of them, nor emit bills, 
nor borrow money on the credit of the United 
States, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon 
the number of vessels of war to be built or pur- 
chased, or the number of land or sea forces 
to be raised, nor appoint a commander-in- 
chief of the army or navy," unless with the 
assent of nine of the thirteen States. 

To the Articles of Confederation the Con- 
stitution of the United States presents a funda- 
mental and almost a complete antithesis. 

In the first place, the foundations of national 
legislative power under the Constitution were 
laid broad and deep. It is true that the Senate, 
which is composed of two Senators from each 
State, chosen by the legislature thereof, rep- 
resents a compromise. It reflected the old con- 
ception of the equality of States, on which 



FEDEEALISM 33 

the Articles of Confederation were l:ased. 
But the compromise was necessary in order to 
obtain the assent of the several States to the 
union ; and the principle of State equality was 
discarded in the House of Representatives, 
whose members were to be apportioned among 
the several States, according to population. 
The fundamental point, however, to be noted, 
is that the legislative power no longer oper- 
ates upon the States, but operates directly upon 
the people of the United States. The Senators 
and Representatives were to be paid out of the 
Treasury of the United States, and the United 
States was to raise its own revenues. 

The legislative power, as defined in the Con- 
stitution, was ample for national purposes. 
The Congress was invested with power to lay 
and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; 
to pay the debts, and provide for the common 
defense and general welfare of the United 
States, subject only to the proviso that all debts, 
imposts, and excises should be uniform through- 
out the United States. Congress was further 
invested with power to borrow money on the 
credit of the United States; to regulate com- 
merce with foreign nations, and among the sev- 
eral States, and with the Indian tribes ; to estab- 
3 



p4 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

lish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uni- 
form laws on the subject of bankruptcies; to 
coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of 
foreign coin, and to fix the standard of weights 
and measures; to provide for the punishment 
of counterfeiting United States securities and 
coin ; to establish Post-Offices and Post-Eoads ; 
to grant copyrights and patents; to constitute 
tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; to 
define and punish piracies and felonies com- 
mitted on the high seas, and offenses against 
the law of nations; to declare war, grant let- 
ters of marque and reprisal, and make rules 
concerning captures on land and water ; to raise 
and support armies; to provide and maintain 
a navy; to make rules for the government and 
regulation of the land and naval forces ; to pro- 
vide for calling out the militia to execute the 
laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and 
repel invasions; to provide for organizing, 
arming, and disciplining the militia, and for 
governing such part of them as might be em- 
ployed in the service of the United States; to 
exercise exclusive legislation over the seat of 
government, and over all places acquired for 
the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock- 
yards, and other needful buildings; and 



FEBEEALISM 35 

finally, but not of least importance, " to make 
all laws which shall be necessary and proper for 
carrying into execution the foregoing powers, 
and all other powers vested by this Constitu- 
tion in the Government of the United States, 
or in any department or officer thereof." The 
only express limitations placed upon the power 
of Congress were the inhibitions to prohibit 
the slave trade prior to 1808; to suspend the 
privilege of the writ of habeas corpus except 
when, in cases of rebellion or invasion, the pub- 
lic safety might require it; to pass bills of at- 
tainder, or ex post facto laws ; to lay capitation 
or other direct taxes, except in proportion to 
population; to lay taxes or duties on articles 
exported from any State; to give a preference 
by any regulation of commerce or revenue to 
the ports of one State over those of another ; to 
require vessels, bound to or from one State, to 
enter, clear or pay duties in another; or to 
grant any title of nobility. 

On the other hand, it was expressly provided 
that no State should enter into any treaty, alli- 
ance, or confederation ; grant letters of marque 
and reprisal ; coin money ; emit bills of credit ; 
make anything but gold and silver coin a legal 
tender ; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto 



36 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

law or law impairing the obligations of con- 
tracts; or grant any title of nobility. It was 
further provided that no State should, without 
the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or 
duties on imports or exports, except what might 
be absolutely necessary for executing its in- 
spection laws ; that the net proceeds of all duties 
and imposts, laid by any State on imports or 
exports, should be for the use of the United 
States Treasury ; and that all such laws should 
be subject to the revision and control of the 
Congress. The States were also forbidden, 
without the consent of Congress, to lay any duty 
of tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in 
time of peace, enter into any agreement or 
compact with another State or with a foreign 
power, or to engage in war, unless actually 
invaded or in such imminent danger as would 
not admit of delay. 

Not less remarkable is the executive power 
vested by the Constitution in the President of 
the United States; for, owing to their repro- 
bation of the absolute power then exercised by 
the monarchs of Europe, and their special ab- 
horrence of the arbitrary course of George the 
III of England, the American people felt a 
peculiar jealousy of executive authority. 



FEDERALISM 37 

Nevertheless, tlie powers vested in the Presi- 
dent were, like those vested in Congress, ample 
for national purposes. He was made com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and navy of the 
United States, and of the militia of the several 
States when called into the actual service of the 
United States. He was empowered to require 
the opinions, in writing, of the heads of execu- 
tive departments, and to grant reprieves and 
pardons for offenses against the United States, 
except in cases of impeachment. The conduct 
of foreign intercourse was placed in his hands. 
He was empowered, by and with the advice and 
consent of the Senate, to make treaties, with the 
concurrence of two-thirds of the Senators pres- 
ent; to nominate and, by and with the advice 
and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassa- 
dors, other public ministers and consuls, and to 
receive ambassadors and other public ministers. 
The appointment of judges of the Supreme 
Court, and of all other officers of the United 
States, was confided to him, subject to the ad- 
vice and consent of the Senate. He was also 
to give to Congress information of the state 
of the Union, and to recommend to their con- 
sideration such measures as he should judge 
necessary and expedient; to convene both 



38 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

Houses, or either of them, on extraordinary oc- 
casions, and, in case they could not agree as to 
the time of adjournment, to adjourn them to 
such time as he should think. 

The exercise of judicial power, which was so 
signally lacking under the Articles of Con- 
federation, was also amply provided for. Such 
power was vested " in one Supreme Court, and 
in such inferior courts as the Congress may 
from time to time ordain and establish." The 
judges of such courts were to hold office during 
good behavior, and to receive for their services 
a compensation which should not be diminished 
during their continuance in office. The judicial 
power thus vested was declared to extend " to 
all cases, in law and equity, arising under this 
Constitution, the laws of the United States, and 
treaties made, or which shall be made, under 
their authority; to all cases effecting ambassa- 
dors, other public ministers and consuls ; to all 
cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; 
to controversies to which the United States 
shall be a party; to controversies between two 
or more States, between a State and citizens of 
another State, between citizens of different 
States, between citizens of the same State claim- 
ijag lands under grants of different States, and 



FEDEBALISM 3S 

between a State, or the citizens thereof, and 
foreign states, citizens or subjects." 

In addition to the powers thus given, pro- 
vision was made to assure the recognition in 
each State of the public acts, records and judi- 
cial proceedings of other States, and the citizens 
of each State were guaranteed all the privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several States. 
The delivery-up of fugitives from justice 
and the recovery of slaves, as between the 
several States, were assured. Furthermore, 
Congress was empowered '' to dispose of and 
make all needful rules and regulations respect- 
ing the territory or other property belonging 
to the United States;" and it was provided 
that the United States should ' ' guarantee ' ' to 
every State " a Eepublican form of govern- 
ment," and '* protect each of them against 
invasion," and, " on application of the legis- 
lature, or of the executive (when the legis- 
lature cannot be convened), against domestic 
violence. ' ' 

Finally, and most importantly, it was de- 
clared that * ' this Constitution, and the laws of 
the United States which shall be made in pur- 
suance thereof ; and all treaties made, or which 
shall be made, under the authority of the 



40 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

United States, shall be the supreme law of the 
land, and the judges in every State shall be 
bound thereby, anything in the constitution or 
laws of any State to the contrary notwith- 
standing." 

The form of this clause, which was obviously 
designed to secure the subordination of State 
authority in matters of federal cognizance, was 
directly due to the difficulty, to which we have 
heretofore adverted, in securing the perform- 
ance of the stipulations of the IVth Article of 
the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, con- 
cerning the recovery of debts. The specifica- 
tion of " treaties made," as well as of those 
which should be made, was intended unequi- 
vocally to embrace the Treaty of Peace. Nor 
did the clause provide for the nullification of 
only inconsistent State laws ; it equally included 
the inconsistent provisions of State constitu- 
tions. '^ Anything in the Constitution or laws 
of any State to the contrary notwithstanding, ' ' 
is the phrase employed; the subordination of 
State authority to national authority, within 
the sphere of national action, was made 
complete. 

Immediately after the Constitution was put 
into operation, ten Amendments were adopted. 



FEDEBALISM 41 

They were in the nature of a bill of rights, and 
were designed to remove objections that had 
been excited by the broad grants of federal 
power. By the last of these Amendments, it 
was declared that powers not delegated by the 
Constitution to the United States, nor pro- 
hibited by it to the States, were reserved to the 
States respectively, or to the people. By an 
eleventh Amendment, soon afterwards ratified, 
suits against individual States by citizens of 
other States or of foreign countries were ex- 
cluded from the grant of judicial power. 

The American people, having determined 
upon the formation of a national government, 
proceeded directly to the accomplishment of 
that object, establishing, on the basis of a com- 
mon citizenship, a government which, with its 
own executive, its own legislature, its own 
judiciary, and its own military and naval forces, 
operated directly upon the people as individ- 
uals, levied and collected its own taxes, adopted 
and applied its own legislation, pronounced and 
enforced its own judgments, and determined for 
itself questions of war and of peace. In con- 
templating these results, it is instructive to 
compare the epoch-making work of the Ameri- 
can constitution makers with the great examples 



42 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

of federal union in Europe — Switzerland and 
Germany — although in these cases the develop- 
ment of federal institutions not only came about 
gradually but involved the progressive concilia- 
tion of divergent local interests deeply rooted 
in ancient political institutions and habits of 
thought. 

Even today citizenship in Switzerland is of 
cantonal rather than of national origin, while 
the federal executive power is lodged in a body 
of seven persons called the Federal Council. 
The members of this body are elected by the 
federal legislature for terms of three years, and 
are usually re-elected for successive terms. 
They act as heads of departments, and are in 
reality hard-worked officials, who, although they 
draw modest salaries, spend most of their 
time at their desks. Their presiding officer or 
chairman is designated by the federal legisla- 
ture from year to year. Officially styled the 
President of the Confederation, and commonly 
known abroad as the President of Switzerland, 
he discharges ceremonial functions which or- 
dinarily belong to a chief executive, but his 
essential powers are only those of a member of 
the council. The legislature consists of a 
Federal Assembly, composed of a Council of 



FEDERALISM 43 

States, in which the cantons are equally rep- 
resented, and a National Council, which is the 
popular and more numerous and has proved to 
be the more important chamber. A Federal 
Supreme Court of limited jurisdiction, com- 
posed of nineteen members elected by the 
Federal Assembly for six years, sits at Lau- 
sanne, in the Palace of Justice erected there for 
its use. In spite of the smallness of the coun- 
try, the tendency towards centralization in 
Switzerland has on the whole developed slowly. 
In recent years, however, the centralizing pace 
has been greatly accelerated, as the result of 
the buildings of railroads (substantially all of 
which the federal government owns and oper- 
ates), the increase of intercantonal intercourse, 
and the incidental growth of a desire for uni- 
formity of law. The limited grants of legisla- 
tive power formerly made to the federal gov- 
ernment were extended by constitutional 
amendment in 1898 so as to embrace both civil 
and criminal law; and in December, 1907, the 
Federal Assembly, after mature deliberation, 
adopted without a dissenting voice a national 
civil code, which was to come into force on 
January 1, 1912. In Switzerland as in the 
United States commerce is the great and in- 



^4 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

exorable factor in the extension of national 
activities in time of peace. 

In Germany, by the Constitution of 1871, the 
laws of the Empire are within their sphere su- 
preme. There is one citizenship for all Ger- 
many, and all Germans in foreign countries 
have equal claims upon the protection of the 
Empire. The supervision of the Empire and 
its legislation comprehend the right of citizen- 
ship ; the issuing and examination of passports ; 
the surveillance of aliens ; colonization and emi- 
gration ; customs duties and commerce ; coinage, 
and the emission of paper money; foreign trade 
and navigation, and consular representation 
abroad ; and the imperial army and navy. The 
Emperor represents the Empire among na- 
tions; enters into alliances and other conven- 
tions with foreign countries; sends and re- 
ceives ambassadors ; and declares war and con- 
cludes peace in the name of the Empire, sub- 
ject to the proviso that, for a declaration of 
war, the consent of the federal council is re- 
quired, except in case of '' an attack upon the 
territory of the confederation or its coasts.'' 
The relations of the several States to the Em- 
pire and to each other are not, however, wholly 
regulated by the written Constitution. The 



FEDEBALISM 45 

several States preserve the right of legation; 
as late as 1895 the government of Baden de- 
clined to receive representations from the 
United States on a matter which was consid- 
ered to be of peculiarly internal concern ex- 
cept through George Bancroft, who, although 
he had then been gathered to his fathers, was 
still borne on the records of Baden as Ameri- 
can minister to that kingdom. They also grant 
exequaturs to foreign consuls within their terri- 
tories, although all German consuls are sent out 
by the Empire. They may enter into conven- 
tions with foreign powers concerning matters 
not within the competence of the Empire or of 
the Emperor, and within the limits fixed by 
the laws of the Empire; even today the rela- 
tions of the United States with some of the 
German States in matters of naturalization and 
extradition are regulated by treaties made with 
those States before the formation of the Em- 
pire. They may also conclude concordats with 
the Holy See. The federal union in Germany is 
indeed a complex structure; but, although it 
may be difficult to harmonize it with abstract 
notions of government, Prince Bismarck was 
wont to console himself with the reflection that 
it worked well. But in Germany, just as in 



46 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

the United States and in Switzerland, the 
growth of commerce, interstate as well as for- 
eign, accelerates the tendency towards the aug- 
mentation of national control and the centrali- 
zation of power. 



LECTUEE II 

Democracy 

The adoption of the Constitution marks the 
high tide of early federalism. This is far from 
saying that the spirit of nationality spent itself 
in the framing of that instrument. But the 
American people were jealous of authority. 
This attitude towards government was the 
necessary result of their situation and ante- 
cedents. Living in a new country of vast ex- 
tent, surrounded on all sides by forces that 
were antagonistic if not hostile, with savage 
men to encounter and a wilderness to subdue, 
they had learned to rely upon their personal 
strength and resources. Out of these condi- 
tions there developed an intense individualism. 
Accustomed to look to themselves rather than 
to government for their protection, they were 
unused to the pressure of administrative con- 
trol and regarded with jealousy, not unmixed 
with distrust, the exercise of a strong gov- 
ernmental authority. 

The same conditions that made the people in- 
dividualistic also rendered them democratic. 

47 



48 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

The colonial charters naturally reflected the 
aristocratic character of the government from 
which they emanated. But aristocracy was 
unsuited to the wilderness. Interdependence 
and the need of self-help made men feel that 
they were placed on an equal footing. In such 
circumstances it was difficult to preserve dis- 
tinctions of rank or to secure respect for power 
which was not based upon the merits of the 
individual. It was merely the play of natural 
forces as they existed in America that caused 
aristocracy to decline and democracy to grow. 
The Eevolution was itself a democratic move- 
ment, to which, according to the testimony of 
eminent patriots and the veracious disclosures 
of later and perhaps more candid historians, 
a large proportion of " influential characters," 
of the propertied, office-holding and profes- 
sional classes, were from first to last opposed. 
As has been said, the American people de- 
veloped an intense individualism. Democracy 
is not necessarily individualistic ; it may on the 
contrary be highly socialistic; but in the early 
days of the American Union the grounds for 
the growth of socialistic principles did not 
exist. Socialism begins when human wants 
cannot be gratified without trenching upon the 



DEMOCEACy 49 

position of those who have been forehanded in 
gaining control of the country's material re- 
sonrces. Jin America the entire continent 
stretched out before the adventurous settler; 
it was his almost for the asking if he had the 
strength, the fortitude and the skill to subdue 
and defend it. The American democracy was 
therefore individualistic, and it may be said 
that individualism grew as democracy grew. 
Proceeding from the same conditions, they 
were not antagonistic but progressed and pros- 
pered together. 

I The democratic spirit, inevitably produced 
by the conditions in which the American people 
lived, was encouraged, intensified and con- 
firmed by the political philosophy wliich they 
espoused on their advent into the family of 
nations. ' The idea of democracy, although it 
flourished in the rich but untilled soil of the 
American continent, was not born there. Long 
before the American Eevolution it had found 
expression in the writings of political philo- 
sophers in Europe who protested against gov- 
ernmental and ecclesiastical oppressions. The 
labors and writings of these philosophers 
specially distinguished the eighteenth century 
— the most fruitful period in the history of the 
4 



50 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

world in the inculcation and spread of the prin- 
ciples of liberty. The idea of democracy was 
systematized and expounded in the doctrine of 
natural rights. 

According to this doctrine the true principles 
of society and of government were to be traced 
back to a state of nature. The state of nature 
was a state of innocence — a sort of garden of 
Eden — in which evil was unknown. Evil was 
introduced by man's misdeeds ; and in order to 
protect the innocent against the guilty it was 
found to be necessary to yield up some of the 
rights which nature gave in order to insure the 
preservation of the rest. Thus society was to 
be regarded as a sort of contract or compact, 
while government was looked upon as a benefi- 
cence only so far as it strictly confined its acti- 
vities to the repression of what was wrong and 
the protection of the innocent and helpless 
against the aggressions and rapacity of the 
malevolent strong. When government trans- 
cended these bounds, it became an evil and its 
activities were to be regarded as purely tyran- 
nical. Society was to be congratulated when 
it had as little government as possible, and, 
according to the current phrase, that govern- 
ment was best which governed least. 



DEMOCRACY 51 

Our later political philosophers have been in- 
clined to deride this doctrine; they deny that 
any such thing as a state of nature, in the 
sense in which their predecessors used that 
phrase, ever existed. They consider the theory 
altogether artificial. Our modern critics how- 
ever lose sight of the fact that to a great ex- 
tent systems of political philosophy are but the 
expression — and often the belated expression — 
of social evolution, and that in political philo- 
sophy as in political economy there is very little 
that can be regarded as axiomatic or as per- 
manently true. Principles will be regarded as 
correct or incorrect in proportion as they re- 
flect existing conditions; and until we can af- 
firm that the final stage of political and so- 
cial evolution has been reached and that no new 
developments can be made, we shall have no 
assurance that the political and social theories 
of today will not be discarded tomorrow, or 
that the political and social principles dis- 
carded today will not be revived and reapplied 
in the next generation. Whether regarded as 
true or as false, the doctrine of natural rights 
is on one ground alone entitled to our deferen- 
tial consideration; it was the fundamental tenet 
of those who in the eighteenth century main- 



52 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

tained the cause of political and intellectual 
emancipation, and as such it furnished to the 
advocates of liberty throughout the world a 
philosophy and a justification. 

The Declaration of Independence was per- 
meated with this philosophy and rested upon 
it for its justification. In its appeal to the 
world it invoked the laws of nature as well as 
the laws of nature's God, and upon this foun- 
dation, the security of which was not doubted, 
it proclaimed these truths to be self-evident: 
That all men are created equal; that they are 
endowed by their Creator with certain inalien- 
able rights, among which are life, liberty and 
the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these 
rights, governments are instituted among men, 
deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed; that whenever any form of gov- 
ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it 
is the right of the people to alter or to abolish 
it and to institute new government, laying its 
foundation on such principles and organizing 
its powers in such form as to them shall seem 
most likely to effect their safety and happi- 
ness. Prudence indeed might dictate, said the 
Declaration, that governments long established 
should not be changed for light and transient 



DEM0CEAC7 53 

causes; and experience had shown that man- 
kind were more disposed to suffer, while evils 
were endurable, than to right themselves by 
abolishing the forms to which they were ac- 
customed ; but when a long train of abuses and 
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same ob- 
ject, evinced a design to reduce the people to 
an absolute despotism, it was their right and 
their duty to throw off the usurping govern- 
ment and to provide new guards for their future 
security. Such, it was affirmed, had been the 
patient sufferance of the colonies, and such 
was the necessity which constrained them to 
alter their former systems of government. To 
show that the history of the reigning king of 
Great Britain was a history of " repeated in- 
juries and usurpation," all having the direct 
object of establishing an " absolute tyranny " 
over the States, the facts were recited to a 
" candid world." 

It has sometimes been the fashion to scoff 
at this Declaration of Independence as a string 
of phrases without serious meaning and with- 
out a direct and practical application to human 
affairs. But those who assume this attitude 
betray a mental bias or confess themselves un- 
familiar with or incapable of understanding the 



54 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

course of American history. The Fathers of 
the Country have been charged with incon- 
sistency in uttering sentiments of natural right 
while tolerating the system of slavery. To this 
charge we may answer, first, that they were gen- 
erally opposed to the continuance of the system 
of slavery and looked forward to its extinction; 
and secondly, that they regarded the African 
race as inferior to their own, and therefore as 
not coming primarily within the scope of a 
declaration of natural rights, when applied to 
political organization. But, however this may 
be, we are dealing here with what I have called 
causative facts, and the great causative fact is 
that the Declaration of Independence was the 
charter of the American Kevolution ; that until 
the formation of the Constitution of the United 
States it was the main charter of the American 
Union; and that it has continued to the present 
day to animate and inspire the great Ameri- 
can democracy in preserving their nationality 
and their liberties. 

The Constitution of the United States, while 
it furnished provisions for assuring the liber- 
ties of the people as well as for establishing a 
strong national government, was not regarded 
by its framers as founding a democratic gov- 



DEMOCRACY 55 

eriiment. At the time when it was formulated 
and proclaimed the dominant idea in the public 
mind was that of federalism; the object sought 
was union, and a government by which union 
might be obtained and rendered efficient for 
the purposes immediately to be subserved. 
One of the arguments made in opposition to the 
ratification of the Constitution was that it 
would break down on account of the extent of 
the territory to which it was to apply. The 
advocates of ratification, among whom we may 
particularly mention Madison, met this argu- 
ment by saying that it was based upon the 
fallacy of confounding a republic with a demo- 
cracy. "In a democracy ", said Madison, 
'' the people exercise the government in per- 
son; in a republic, they assemble and admin- 
ister it by their representatives and agents ; a 
democracy consequently would be confined to a 
small spot, a republic might be extended over a 
large region ". The framers of the Constitu- 
tion had therefore devised a republican form 
of government. 

But, no matter whether the government was 
technically called republican or democratic, 
there was no doubt that the popular tide was 
running strongly in the direction of democracy, 



56 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

and, as has been remarked, democracy meant 
individualism, individualism meant political 
particularism, and in political particularism 
was found the assurance not only that the 
rights of the States would be protected against 
any overweening assumption of national power 
but also that those who administered the na- 
tional government would not generally be found 
to be disposed to press its powers beyond 
proper limits. 

This tenderness towards States' rights, or 
sympathy with local feeling, whichever we may 
please to call it, was clearly shown in the Judi- 
ciary Act of 1789, by which the courts of the 
United States were established and their juris- 
diction defined. As has heretofore been 
pointed out, the Congress was empowered by 
the Constitution to make all laws which should 
be necessary and proper for carrying into exe- 
cution the enumerated powers vested by the 
Constitution in the government of the United 
States or in any department or officer thereof. 
By the Constitution the judicial power of the 
United States was vested in one Supreme 
Court and in such inferior courts as the Con- 
gress might from time to time ordain and es- 
tablish. The mode in which the Supreme 



DEMOCBACY 57 

Court should be constituted was not prescribed, 
and for the most part its jurisdiction w£is not 
defined; and no indication whatever was given 
as to the form in which the inferior courts 
should be created or as to the jurisdiction with 
which they should respectively be endowed. 
For the execution of the powers thus vested 
in the government of the United States, Con- 
gress passed the act of September 24, 1789, to 
*' establish the judicial courts of the United 
States." In erecting the courts and prescrib- 
ing their jurisdiction Congress, it may be as- 
sumed, possessed the power, which has since 
been freely exercised, to prescribe their rules 
of decision. Uniformity of law in matters of 
interstate or international concern is an object 
universally desired and for the attainment of 
which men are constantly working. But, in 
order that the Constitution might sit lightly on 
the people, and that they might not be alarmed 
by a sudden exercise of national power, it was 
provided by the 34th section of the Judiciary 
Act that '' the laws of the several States, ex- 
cept where the Constitution, treaties or statutes 
of the United States shall otherwise require or 
provide, shall be regarded as rules of decision 
in trials at common law in the courts of the 
United States in cases where they apply ". 



58 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

From this legislation it has been inferred and 
affirmed that there is no such thing as a com- 
mon law of the United States, and that when 
the federal courts came to deal with common- 
law questions they necessarily had to resort to 
the common law as they found it in the par- 
ticular States in which they sat. Beginning 
with the case of Swift v. Tyson,^ the federal 
courts have, in spite of this assumption, worked 
out to a certain extent what they have declared 
to be a federal common law in matters of in- 
terstate concern; but their action in so doing 
has not ceased to be a subject of legal con- 
troversy. It may, however, be said that those 
who totally deny the possession by the United 
States of any common law would confer a favor 
upon us if they would indicate from what other 
source citizenship of the United States by birth 
was, prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, uni- 
versally derived. Citizenship by naturalization 
was a constitutional status, for Congress was 
expressly authorized to prescribe a uniform 
rule of naturalization; but, prior to the Four- 
teenth Amendment, which declared ^' all per- 
sons born ... in the United States, and subject 
to the jurisdiction thereof," to be '' citizens 

1 16 Peters, 1. 



DEMOCRACY 59 

of the United States," there was no constitu- 
tional definition of national citizenship by 
birth. Mr. Justice Curtis, in his dissenting 
opinion in the Dred Scott case, argued that the 
Constitution adopted as native American citi- 
zens such persons as were by birth " citizens " 
of the several States ; but this theory failed to 
account for the fact that persons born on terri- 
tory within the jurisdiction of the United 
States, but not within the jurisdiction of any 
State, were also regarded as citizens of the 
United States. We seem indeed to be driven to 
accept as correct the declaration of the Su- 
preme Court, in 1898,^ that " beyond doubt " 
birth " within the sovereignty of the United 
States " created, by virtue of the rule cf the 
common law operating thereunder, national 
citizenship. 

In the case of the United States v. Hudson 
and Goodwin,- in 1812, the Supreme Court of 
the United States, under the influence of par- 
ticularistic tendencies, held that the courts of 
the United States had no common-law jurisdic- 
tion in cases of crime. This case related to an 
indictment for a libel on the President and 

1 United States v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U. S. 649, 675. 

2 7 Cranch, 32. 



60 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

Congress of the United States, published in a 
Connecticut newspaper, charging them with 
having in secret voted two million dollars as 
a present to Bonaparte for leave to make a 
treaty with Spain. The case was certified from 
the circuit court of the United States for the 
district of Connecticut to the Supreme Court of 
the United States on a division of opinion be- 
tween the judges upon the question whether the 
court had common-law jurisdiction in cases of 
libel. The case was not argued either on the 
part of the United States or on the part of the 
defendants. The Supreme Court decided that 
the circuit court had no such jurisdiction. The 
opinion was delivered by Mr. Justice Johnson, 
who stated that, as the decision made on a case 
of libel would apply to every case in which the 
jurisdiction was not vested by statute, the court 
had before it the broad question whether or not 
the courts of the United States could exercise a 
common-law jurisdiction in criminal cases. 
This question was, he said, then brought up for 
the first time to be decided by the Supreme 
Court, and the court considered that it had been 
' ' long since settled in public opinion ' '. In no 
other case for many years had the jurisdiction 
been asserted, and the '' general acquiescence 



DEMOCRACY 61 

of legal men " showed the prevalence of opinion 
in favor of the negative of the proposition. It 
was not necessary, he said, to inquire whether 
the government possessed the power of con- 
ferring on its courts a jurisdiction in case,-? simi- 
lar to that then pending; it was enougli that 
such jurisdiction had not been conferred by any 
legislative act. Such, he declared, " was the 
opinion of a majority " of the court. At the 
same time he admitted that " certain implied 
powers must necessarily result " to the courts 
of justice '' from the nature of their institu- 
tion", such as the power to fine for contempt, 
to imprison for contumacy and to enforce the 
preservation of order. 

If the question was, as Mr. Justice Johnson 
stated, new to the Supreme Court, it cerrainly 
was previously well known to some of its earlier 
judges. It first became known to them in the 
case of Henfield, who was indicted in the United 
States circuit court at Philadelphia for illegally 
enlisting in a French privateer. This case was 
tried in 1793 but was first fully reported in 
1849, in the volume of State Trials published 
in that year by Francis Wharton.^ The de- 
fendant was acquitted, upon a verdict of the 

1 Wliai-ton, State Trials, p. 49. 



52 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

jury of not guilty; but Judges Wilson and Ire- 
dell of the Supreme Court, and Judge Peters 
of the district court, who sat together in the 
trial, concurred in holding that all violations of 
treaties, of the law of nations, and of the com- 
mon law were, so far as federal sovereignty 
was concerned, indictable in the federal courts 
without statute; and this view was sustained 
by Jefferson, who was then Secretary of State, 
and by the Attorney General, Edmund Ran- 
dolph, in an official opinion. Not long after- 
wards the consul of Genoa was tried before 
Chief Justice Jay and Judge Peters and was 
convicted, at common law, for sending a threat- 
ening letter to the British Minister/ Subse- 
quently came the case of Isaac Williams, in 
which a similar ruling was made by Chief Jus- 
tice Ellsworth of the Supreme Court.^ Such 
was the state of the law when, says Wharton,^ 
Judge Chase, in Worrall's case,* — Chief Justice 
Jay, Judge Wilson and Judge Iredell being no 
longer on the bench, and Chief Justice Ells- 
worth being abroad, — '' startled both his col- 

1 United States v. Eavara, 2 Dallas, 297. 

2 Wharton, State Trials, 90, 652. 

3 1 Crim. Law, sec. 254. 

4 Wharton, State Trials, 189 : 2 Dallas, 297. 



DEMOCRACY 63 

league and the bar " by announcing that he 
would entertain no indictment at common law. 
The prisoner had in fact been convicted, and 
the declaration of Judge Chase was made upon 
a motion in arrest of judgment. Judge Peters, 
who sat with Judge Chase, maintained the view 
previousl}^ enforced by the federal judges, and 
in this difference of opinion a mitigated tliough 
substantial sentence was imposed upon the de- 
fendant. No further judicial discussion of the 
question appears till 1812 ; but in 1813, the year 
after the case of United States v. Hudson and 
Goodwin, the question whether the United 
States had common-law jurisdiction of crimes 
came before the United States circuit court 
in Massachusetts, in which sat Mr. Justice 
Story, who, although he eventually fell under 
the strong federal influence of Marshall, was of 
Republican antecedents in the party sense. 
Mr. Justice Story, while admitting that the 
courts of the United States were of limited 
jurisdiction, contended that, when authority 
was once conferred upon them, its nature and 
extent, and the mode in which it should be ex- 
ercised, must be regulated by the rules of the 
common law. The inference, he urged, was 
plain that the circuit courts had cognizance of 



64 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

all offences against the United States and that, 
in the absence of statute, they were to be de- 
fined and punished according to the common 
law. The whole difficulty and obscurity had, 
he said, in his judgment, arisen from losing 
sight of this distinction. Common law offences 
against the United States would include " all 
offences against the sovereignty, the public 
rights, the public justice, the public peace, the 
public trade and the public police of the 
United States." Outside of this, common law 
offences would remain cognizable by the States, 
the federal courts taking cognizance only when 
the offence was directed '' against the sover- 
eignty or powers confided to the United 
States." The district judge dissented, in or- 
der that the question might again be brought 
before the Supreme Court. As appears by the 
report, a majority of the court were ready to 
hear the question reargued ; but no counsel ap- 
peared for the defendant, while the Attorney- 
General considered that the point was deter- 
mined in the case of the United States v. Hud- 
son and Goodwin, with the result that the court 
felt itself bound by the authority of that case 
and so certified to the circuit court.^ 

i United States v. Coolidge, 1 Gallison, 488 ; 1 Wheaton, 415. 



DEMOCBACY 65 

It is an illustration of liow * * chimeras dire ' ' 
sometimes affright the human mind, that, when 
the suggestion is made that the case of the 
United States v. Hudson and Goodwin was 
wrongly decided, the propounder of this view 
is thought to believe in a rank departure from 
settled principles and the obliteration of State 
jurisdiction. For this view, however, there is 
in reality no foundation. The assumptions of 
jurisdiction in the earlier federal cases related 
merely to offenses against the authority of the 
United States, and no one ever proposed to go 
further or imagined that the government could 
do so. Had the view expressed in the earlier 
decisions been adhered to, the situation today 
would in substance have differed slightly, if at 
all, from that which actually exists. In course 
of time the whole field of crimes against the 
United States has been covered by statute, and 
many crimes have been created which were not 
offences at common law. Moreover, in the en- 
forcement of this statute law, in which crimes 
are often merely designated by name, it has con- 
stantly been necessary to appeal to the general 
common law, — and not to the common law of 
any particular State, — for rules for the exer- 
cise of the jurisdiction conferred upon the 
5 



66 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

courts, and for the definition of tlie designated 
offences. 

The decision of the Supreme Court, in the 
case of the United States v. Hudson and Good- 
win, shows that that tribunal was not disposed 
to exaggerate the powers of the national gov- 
ernment, or to sanction any attempt on the part 
of that government to usurp authority; but, 
after 1811, a majority of the members of the 
court held their appointment from administra- 
tions of the Republican or anti-Federalist party. 
It is true that decisions were made which con- 
firmed and tended to extend the sphere of action 
of the national government; but the most of 
these decisions, — although they were criticized 
at the time, — have received the general ap- 
proval of the public as being based on unim- 
peachable constitutional grounds. The court 
declared the invalidity of State laws impairing 
the obligations of contracts,^ but this was in 
obedience to the express provision of the con- 
stitution that no State should pass any law caus- 
ing such impairment. The supremacy of the 
judgments of the courts of the United States 
was upheld, as against inconsistent State laws,^ 

1 Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch, 87. 

2 United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch, 136; Cohens v. Virginia, 
6 Wheaton, 264. 



DEMOCRACY Q'J 

but this was a logical inference from the ex- 
press declaration that the Constitution and the 
treaties and laws made in pursuance thereof 
should be the supreme law of the land. It was 
held that the United States might incorporate 
a bank free from the taxation, control or ob- 
struction of any State,^ but this was only a 
deduction from the authority conferred upon 
Congress to make all laws necessary and proper 
to carry into effect the powers vested by the 
Constitution in the government of the United 
States. It was affirmed that the power of Con- 
gress to regulate commerce embraced all the 
various forms of intercourse including naviga- 
tion, and that ' ' wherever commerce among the 
States goes the judicial power of the United 
States goes to protect it from invasion by State 
legislatures, " ^^ but the Constitution expressly 
gave to Congress the power to regulate com- 
merce with foreign nations and among the sev- 
eral States and with the Indian tribes. 

To the rule that the constitutional opinions 
of the Supreme Court in the earlier decades of 
the nineteenth century continue to be received 

1 McCuUoch V. Maryland, 4 Wheaton, 316, 421. 

2 Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheaiton, 1 ; Brown r. Maryland, 12 
Wheaton, 419. 



6S AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

as authority, perhaps the chief exception is that 
Tvhich was delivered by Marshall in the Dart- 
mouth College case."^ This case grew out of a 
contest between two rival boards of trustees, 
one of which was composed of the successors 
of the original incorporators under royal grant, 
and the other of ]persons appointed under an 
act of the legislature of New Hampshire, which 
had undertaken to inquire into and regulate the 
affairs of the institution. It lies beyond our 
present purpose to trace the curious judicial 
history of this case and the legal jockeying by 
which it was characterized.- In behalf of the 
successors of the original incorporators it was 
contended that the action of the State of New 
Hampshire in attempting to interfere with the 
exercise of powers under the royal charter had 
violated the prohibition placed by the Constitu- 
tion upon the several States to pass any law im- 
pairing the obligations of contracts; in other 
words, that acts of incorporation constituted 
contracts which the State legislatures could 

1 Dartmoutli College v. Woodward, 4 Wheaton, 518. 

2 The Dartmoutli College case and the Supreme Court of the 
United States, bv John M. Shirley, 1S79; A Legal Mummy, or 
the present status of the Dartmouth College case; An address 
delivered before the Vermont Bar Association, October 26, 1885, 
by Aldace F. Walker, President. 



DEMOCBACT gg 

neither alter nor revoke. Everyone has heard 
of the argument of Webster in favor of the 
contention of the old board. Perhaps fortun- 
ately for this contention, the court did not af- 
ford an opportunity to William Pinkney of 
Maryland, the leader of the bar of the United 
States in his day, to be heard on the other side, 
and, without having enjoyed the advantage of 
Pinkney 's great powers of argument and of 
oratory, decided in 'favor of the old board. 

The decision, although it preserved the rights 
claimed under the royal grant in the principal 
case, proved to be utterly ineffective to accom- 
plish the general purpose which it was at the 
time apparently thought to serve. Its effect 
has been greatly circumscribed by later de- 
cisions even as regards prior acts of incor- 
poration; but for the future its effect was 
promptly nullified by the inclusion by State 
legislatures in their grants of incorporation of 
express reservations of the right of amendment 
and repeal, and by the passage of general laws 
declaring all charters thereafter granted to be 
subject to alteration, amendment and repeal. 

Meanwhile the cause of democracy was mak- 
ing general progress throughout the States. 
The so-called Federalist party, coming to be 



70 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

identified not so mncli with the national aspir- 
ations that produced the Constitution as with 
certain policies in domestic and foreign affairs 
of unpopular tendency, lost its following and 
ceased to exist, the surviving adherents of its 
later creed often becoming the exponents of 
chronic dissatisfaction and discontent, and 
sometimes even of disloyalty, rather than of 
federalism. Men like Jefferson, Madison and 
John Dickinson, who as advocates of a constitu- 
tion were Federalists in 1787, resumed their 
place as leaders in the popular agitation which, 
distinctly reappearing as early as 1791, carried 
on to further victories the democratic move- 
ment of which the Eevolution was itself the 
product. 

The popular party, first called Eepublican, 
became Democratic-Eepublican, and then sim- 
ply Democratic, and, eventually coming to em- 
brace for a time substantially the entire popu- 
lation, divided on personal rather than on poli- 
tical lines. The election of the President was 
practically taken from the hands of the small 
and select electoral body in which the Constitu- 
tion had placed it and was transferred by popu- 
lar action to the people themselves. Candi- 
dates came to be nominated by national con- 



DEMOCRACY 71 

ventions, and it was for the purpose of casting 
their ballots for the one candidate or the other 
that the electors in the several States were 
chosen. 

This revolution in national methods was 
only a reflection of what had been going on in 
the several States. The States had been be- 
coming more and more democratic in their 
constitutions and government. There is noth- 
ing to marvel at in this process when it is re- 
flected that the doctrine of natural rights pro- 
claimed by the Declaration of Independence,— 
a proclamation which formulated but did not 
create the popular belief,— had found its way in- 
to one after another of the State constitutions. 
Virginia, in her anticipatory bill of rights 
adopted at Williamsburg on June 12, 1776, 
- which was afterwards prefixed to her constitu- 
tion, declared that " all men are by nature 
equally free and independent, and have cer- 
tain inherent rights, of which when they enter 
into a state of society, they cannot, by any com- 
pact, deprive and divest their posterity; 
namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with 
the means of acquiring and possessing prop- 
erty, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and 
safety;" that '* all power is vested in, and con- 



72 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

sequently derived from, the people ; that magis- 
trates are their trustees and servants, and at 
all times amenable to them;" and that a ma- 
jority of the community had " an indubitable, 
inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, 
alter, or abolish " their government in the 
manner ^^ most conducive to the public weal." 
Similar clauses may be found in the constitu- 
tions soon afterwards adopted by Maryland, 
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. 
New York, in her constitution of 1777, incorpor- 
ates the Declaration of Independence in its en- 
tirety. Affirmations of popular rights, of the 
inherence of political power in the people, and 
of the right to alter government so as to sub- 
serve the public interest, as therein proclaimed, 
may indeed be found in almost every State con- 
stitution since adopted. 

In the colonial times the right of suffrage 
was closely restricted. It is difficult to general- 
ize on the subject, owing to the diversity of 
the conditions which prevailed in the different 
colonies ; and it is beyond our present purpose 
to enter into a minute examination of the pro- 
visions of the various colonial charters. In 
some instances, special moral qualifications 
were prescribed ; in others, religious tests were 



DEMOCRACY 73 

exacted; but everjivhere property qualifica- 
tions were imposed. 

In the constitutions which the States began 
to adopt in 1776 religious qualifications were 
in two instances — New York and South Caro- 
lina — retained, and in most cases some quali- 
fication of property was still prescribed/ But, 
with the progress of the democratic movement, 
the property qualification gradually disap- 
peared. By the constitution of Connecticut of 
1818 all white male citizens of the United States, 
twenty-one years old, of good moral character, 
who either (1) possessed a freehold estate of 
the annual value of seven dollars, or (2) had 
performed certain military duties, or (3) had 
paid a State tax within a year, were declared 
to be qualified electors. In Delaware, by the con- 
stitution of 1776, the suffrage was confined to 
freeholders, but by the constitution of 1831 it 
was given to all resident citizens. Georgia as 
early as 1798 required only citizenship and resi- 
dence and the payment of all taxes levied dur- 

1 Thorpe, in his Constitutional History of the American 
People, gives (vol. 1, pp. 93-97) a table of the qualifications of 
electors prescribed by the various constitutions from 1776 to 
ISOO. He estimates that there were during that period about 
150,000 voters, or from 15 to 20 per cent, of what the number 
would have been on the basis of to-day. 



74 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

ing the year preceding the election. The prop- 
erty qualifications exacted of electors in Mary- 
land by the constitution of 1776 were abolished 
by an amendment in 1810. Subject to the re- 
quirement that lawfully assessed taxes must 
have been paid, we find in the constitutions of 
Massachusetts of 1780 and 1820 a similar trans- 
ition. In New Hampshire, by the constitution 
of 1784, every adult male inhabitant of a town 
and parish, with town privileges, who had paid 
a poll tax, was invested with the franchise. A 
property qualification prescribed in New Jersey 
in 1776 was done away with in 1844. A similar 
qualification preserved in New York in 1777 
was modified in 1821 and abolished in 1846. In 
North Carolina electors of senators were re- 
quired to possess a freehold of fifty acres of 
land, but electors of members of the more nu- 
merous branch of the legislature need only have 
paid public taxes. Only the payment of public 
taxes was required in Pennsylvania as early as 
1776. The record of Ehode Island is excep- 
tional, but the franchise was liberalized in 1888. 
In South Carolina, in 1778, electors embraced 
only those who, besides acknowledging the be- 
ing of a God and believing in a future state of 
rewards and punishments, possessed a freehold 



DEMOCBACy 75 

of at least fifty acres of land or a town lot, or 
had paid taxes equivalent to a tax on fifty 
acres. This was modified in 1790, and in 1810 
the property qualification was done away with 
in the case of a person who had actually re- 
sided in the election district six months. Vir- 
ginia by her earlier constitutions restricted the 
suffrage to freeholders, leaseholders, and tax- 
paying heads of families; but by the constitu- 
tion of 1850 it was extended to all white male 
citizens who had resided in the State two years 
and in the voting district a year. In the new 
States that were admitted to the Union, es- 
pecially after 1800, any conditions beyond those 
of citizenship, residence, and legal age were 
rarely affixed, and, if originally imposed, were 
soon abolished. This was only what was to be 
expected in the vigorous young commonwealths 
of the West, where democratic individualism 
had an unobstructed sweep and flourished for 
the benefit and example of the whole country. 
Indiana went so far in her constitution of 1851 
as to provide that every voter of good moral 
character should " be entitled to admission to 
practice law in all courts of justice " — a privi- 
lege only lately done away with. 

Meanwhile, the requirement of property 



76 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

qualifications for State offices, executive and 
legislative, and particularly for tliat of mem- 
ber of the Senate or of the House of Repre- 
sentatives in the State legislature, progres- 
sively disappeared — in Pennsylvania in 1790, in 
Maryland in 1837, in Massachusetts in 1840, in 
New Jersey in 1844, in New York in 1846, in 
Virginia in 1850, in New Hampshire in 1852. 
In Delaware they were retained after 1831 only 
as to senators. They survived down to the 
civil war in the two Carolinas. In the new 
States they were rarely exacted, and, where 
imposed, were soon removed. 

Nor was the popularizing of governmental 
institutions confined to the executive and legis- 
lative departments. Under the Constitution of 
the United States the federal judges were and 
still are appointed by the President, by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate, for 
life or during good behavior, and are remov- 
able only by impeachment. In the States the 
judges of the various courts were appointed by 
the governor or by the legislature during good 
behavior or perhaps for a term of years. In 
Vermont, under the constitution of 1793, the 
judges of the supreme court and of the several 
county and probate courts were elected an- 



DEMOCBACY 77 

nually by the legislature, in conjunction with 
the council, and it was not until 1870 that the 
term of the judges of the supreme court was 
extended to two years and their election made 
biennial. In Georgia, in 1812, it was provided 
by constitutional amendment that the judges 
of the inferior courts should be elected for 
four years by the persons qualified to vote for 
members of the general assembly. In 1832 the 
people of Mississippi, on an enthusiastic but 
lasting rebound from the aristocratic tendencies 
of their first constitution, took the bold step of 
making their entire judiciary elective by 
popular vote. As the debates in the constitu- 
tional convention were not reported and pre- 
served, the reasons which were given by in- 
dividual members for supporting so important 
a change in the judicial system cannot be 
quoted; but judging by the reports of what 
took place in other constitutional conventions 
on similar occasions, it may be inferred that 
the main cause was the wave of democratic 
feeling then sweeping over the country, prob- 
ably reinforced by complaints of misconduct or 
inefiiciency on the part of individual judges in 
Mississippi or elsewhere. By the constitution 
of 1832, the judicial power in Mississippi was 



78 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

vested in a high court of errors and appeals, 
and such other courts of law and equity as 
were provided for in that instrument. The 
high court of errors and appeals was to 
consist of three judges who were to be 
chosen by the qualified electors of each of 
three districts into which the legislature 
was to divide the State. The term of the 
judges so elected was limited to six years, and 
the judges were to vacate their offices in two, 
four and six years, respectively, so that one 
judge should be elected every two years. 
Vacancies were to be filled by executive ap- 
pointment only if the unexpired term did not 
exceed one year, and each judge must be at 
least thirty years of age. Certain courts were 
established with judges to be elected for a term 
of four years. These judges must have at- 
tained the age of twenty-six years. There were 
also to be established probate courts with 
judges to be elected for two years. 

The method thus introduced was soon 
adopted in other States and in time the popular 
election of judges became the general practice. 
The change was unquestionably due to the 
growth of democratic principles. But it may 
be doubted whether it was a necessary corol- 



DEMOCRACY 79 

lary from such principles. The primary duty 
of a judge is to administer the laws as between 
man and man and as between man and the 
government impartially and without sense of 
private obligation, hope of personal reward or 
fear of displeasure. As judges are only men, 
they will in any event be more or less subject 
to the influences of the great movements of hu- 
man thought and feeling going on about them. 
Beyond this it is not desirable that they should 
be subject to impressions from sources outside 
the sphere of their judicial duties, and it would 
be difficult to show that popular rights have 
gained either in extension or in security as the 
result of placing the names of judges upon 
party ballots. Certain it is that, if there be 
any foundation whatever for one half of the 
criticisms heard today of the decisions of elec- 
tive judges, the experiment has fallen far short 
of the measure of complete success. In well 
known instances the people have rebuked fla- 
grant attempts to subject judicial candidates to 
the dictates of political managers ; but, in spite 
of this fact, confidence in the judiciary has not 
infrequently been impaired by the general dis- 
trust of the sources from which nominations 
were derived. A system under which the rights 



go AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

of suitors and of the people at large may be 
exposed to impairment at the hands of magis- 
trates who lack that sense of security and in- 
dependence which is so essential to judicial rec- 
titude, cannot be regarded as necessarily and 
essentially democratic. It is the function of the 
judge to administer the law as it is, and to de- 
clare the law as he finds it. If the laws need 
to be changed the legislature can change them. 
Judges are not immortal and their terms, un- 
less some constitutional provision stand in the 
way, can be limited, to say nothing of impeach- 
ment or other process provided for their re- 
moval. 

Whether in the first instance the sentiment 
in favor of the popular election of judges was 
in any respect due to opposition to the assump- 
tion by the courts of the then novel power of 
declaring acts of the legislature to be invalid, 
the lack of reports of the debates in the earlier 
constitutional conventions renders it impos- 
sible certainly to say. It was laid down by 
Blackstone that acts of Parliament contrary to 
natural law would be invalid, but no court had 
ever been found in England to apply this view. 
An echo of the doctrine may be heard in some 
of the early American decisions in which an 



DEMOCEACY g^ 

attempt was made to put the tlieory into prac- 
tice. It became a reality when, after the adop- 
tion of the written constitutions, the courts of 
the United States and of the various States be- 
gan to declare acts of Congress and of the State 
legislatures to be unconstitutional, in order to 
preserve the symmetrical proportions of those 
fundamental charters. Acts of the State legis- 
latures which violated the Constitution of the 
United States were necessarily invalid, because 
it was expressly declared that the Constitution, 
and the treaties and laws made in pursuance 
thereof, should be the supreme law of the land, 
anything in the laws or even in the constitu- 
tions of the several States to the contrary not- 
withstanding. As regards the federal govern- 
ment, the constitutions and laws of the States 
were the acts of subordinate authorities. But, 
when a United States court declared a federal 
law to be unconstitutional, or a State court 
declared an act of the legislature to be invalid 
because it was conceived to be inconsistent with 
the local constitution, there was presented a 
manifest contradiction of opinion and of con- 
duct as between co-ordinate branches of the 
government. It was therefore doubted whether 
such an exercise of power by the judiciary was 
6 



82 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

admissible; in other words, whether the courts 
were the exclusive interpreters and sole guar- 
dians of the purpose and meaning of constitu- 
tional provisions. The action of the courts was 
thus necessarily brought into the arena of pub- 
lic discussion. For, the questions with which 
the courts dealt when they declared acts of 
legislation to be unconstitutional were not al- 
ways in the ordinary sense judicial but were 
sometimes essentially political, involving the 
application of principles of construction on 
which the judges inevitably divided according 
to their political creeds. This certainly was 
an argument — and one not wholly devoid of 
force — for committing the election of judges to 
the people and making it a party question. 

The same argument has lately been advanced 
in favor of rendering the judiciary still more 
responsive to popular opinion, by subjecting the 
judges, as has been done in certain places, to 
" recall." In Oregon, for instance — a State in 
which the judiciary is elective — any public offi- 
cer who has occupied his place for six months 
may, under a constitutional amendment 
adopted in 1908, he ^' recalled " by the filing 
of a petition signed by twenty-five per cent of 
the number of electors who voted in his dis- 



DEMOCBACT 83 

trict at the preceding election. The petition 
must state the reasons for the recall; and if, 
within five days after it is filed, the officer does 
not resign, the question of his recall is 
then authoritatively determined by a special 
election which must be ordered to be held 
within twenty days, and at which the rea- 
sons for the recall and the officer's justification 
may respectively be set forth on the ballot in 
not more than two hundred words — a limita- 
tion implying, in the possible case of differ- 
ences upon questions of law, the possession by 
accused judges of a power of illuminative con- 
densation the benefit of which it would be a 
misfortune for the bench, the bar and the pub- 
lic to lose. I have said that the question of re- 
call is authoritatively determined by the special 
election, but the determination is not neces- 
sarily final; for a second petition may be filed 
if the petitioners first reimburse the govern- 
ment the cost of the previous recall election. 
Such being the nature and operation of the 
process, it is obvious that the '' recall " is in 
principle directly opposed to the supposition 
which, in spite of the elective system, has con- 
tinued to be entertained, that men must rely 
upon independent judges, equipped with the 



84 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

special learning of their profession, rather than 
npon popular judgments, for the correct inter- 
pretation of the laws and the impartial ad- 
ministration of justice. 

Of character less doubtful, as a genuine product 
of democracy, is the common or public school 
system which universally exists throughout the 
United States. With the extension of the elec- 
tive franchise the conviction deepened that the 
success of government depended upon the in- 
telligence of the masses, and together with this 
feeling there grew the desire to afford to all 
men as far as possible an equal opportunity to 
rise. Influenced by sentiments such as these, 
the public authorities in the several States, re- 
sponding to the general demand, provided with 
increasing liberality the facilities for popular 
education, at first in the lower but eventually 
also in the higher grades of study. And while 
it cannot be denied that high-sounding titles, 
such as that of " university," have often been 
bestowed upon schools not even of collegiate 
rank, yet it is equally true that certain State 
universities occupy today a place among the 
strongest, most progressive and most useful 
institutions of learning in the country. 

The great democratic movement, while it was 



DEMOCRACY 85 

producing such far-reaching results in the life 
of the people at home, was also naturally re- 
flected in the conduct of foreign affairs. As 
was to be expected, sympathy with assertions 
of the right of self-government was instinc- 
tively manifested. The revolutions in South 
America were enthusiastically hailed as a con- 
tinuation of the movement for the emancipa- 
tion of America from colonial administration. 
But, the interest of the American people was 
not confined to the American continents. Me- 
morials were presented to Congress and reso- 
lutions adopted by State legislatures in favor 
of the recognition of the independence of 
Greece. There can be little doubt that the con- 
servative action of the responsible authorities 
of the government in refraining from encour- 
aging this movement scarcely reflected the state 
of popular feeling. This feeling was perhaps 
more correctl}^ expressed by a gentleman in 
the western part of the State of New York, who, 
in a letter to James Campbell, once leader of 
Tammany Hall, declared that he could furnish 
'* five hundred men six feet high with sinewy 
arms and case hardened constitutions, bold 
spirits and daring adventurers who would 
travel upon a bushel of corn and a gallon 



86 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

of whiskey per man from the extreme part 
of the world to Constantinople," while, if 
the Holy Alliance should take sides with 
Spain against her former American colonies, 
'' our backwoodsmen would spring with the 
activity of squirrels " to the assistance of 
the latter.^ If in France, for instance, a 
monarchy was overthrown and a republic set 
up in its place, the minister of the United 
States was expected to be the first to recognize 
it and to extend to it a cordial welcome. In no 
case was the popular attitude more strikingly 
exhibited than in that of Kossuth and the Hun- 
garian revolution. A special and confidential 
agent was sent by the Secretary of State to 
Europe to watch the course of events, and, if 
Hungary should appear to be able to maintain 
her independence, to enter into relations with 
her government. Before this agent could 
reach Hungary the revolution had practically 
come to an end. But popular interest in the 
affair did not subside. Kossuth and many of 

1 The letter here quoted, which the present writer first saw 
some years ago by courtesy of its custodian, has lately been 
published in her volume (pp. 40-42) entitled "As I Eemember: 
EecoUections of American Society during the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury. By Marian Gouverneur. New York and London, D. 
Appieton & Co., 1911." 



■DEMOCRACY 87 

his associates were detained in Turkey, where 
they had sought refuge after the failure of the 
revolution; and the President was authorized, 
if they should wish to emigrate to the United 
States, to bring them over in a public vessel. 
The U. S. S. Mississippi, which was despatched 
on this mission, received on September 10, 
1851, at the Dardanelles, Kossuth and his fam- 
ily and fifty-five other persons. At that time 
Europe was in a democratic ferment; and at 
various ports in the Mediterranean at which 
the Mississippi called demonstrations in honor 
of the distinguished passenger were made by 
democratic societies more or less tinctured with 
revolutionary ideas. At Gibraltar, Kossuth 
left the Mississippi and proceeded to England, 
where a great ovation awaited him. He arrived 
at New York early in December, and there and 
at many places in other States which he visited 
he was acclaimed by applauding multitudes. 
He was received by both Houses of Congress, 
and was entertained by that body at a ban- 
quet at which the President of the Senate, as- 
sisted by the Speaker of the House of Eepre- 
sentatives, presided, and at which Daniel 
Webster, who was then Secretary of State, 
made a speech tliat led to the immediate depar- 



83 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

ture of the diplomatic representative of Austria 
from Washington. It is recorded of William 
H. Seward, then a senator of the United States 
and later to become Secretary of State, who 
was also present at the banquet, that his de- 
monstrations of applause by hands and feet 
and voice were excessive. As party men 
Webster and Seward were Whigs, but as can- 
didates for public favor they marched with the 
democratic masses and even sought to figure as 
leaders among them. Shall we begrudge these 
careworn statesmen, one nearing the end of his 
career and the other approaching his zenith, 
the pleasant sensation of plunging with all the 
ardor and indiscretion of youth into the tumult 
and effervescence of the day? 

In 1853 the Department of State instructed 
the diplomatic representatives of the United 
States that they should, so far as they could do 
so without impairing their usefulness to their 
country, appear at foreign courts ' ' in the sim- 
ple dress of an American citizen," this being, 
as it was conceived, a proper manifestation of 
devotion to republican institutions. The Sec- 
retary of State who issued this order was Wil- 
liam L. Marcy, a statesman whose name stands 
high among those of the ablest men who have 



DEMOCRACY 89 

occupied that great office. Marcy was a demo- 
crat not only in the party sense bnt also in 
the philosophical sense — an experienced states- 
man and an able administrator, bnt in his ha- 
bits a model of unaffected simplicity. His 
democracy he had learned in the State of Mas- 
sachusetts, in the days when it cost something 
to be a " Republican " in that great common- 
wealth. It was a favorite jest of my old friend, 
the late Dr. Francis Wharton, that the su- 
preme court of Massachusetts once decided that 
Democrats were ferae naturae and might law- 
fully be shot on sight. Marcy escaped with his 
life and early settled in the State of New York, 
but not until he had, according to his own ac- 
count, been made to feel that his principles 
were reprobated by the community in which he 
lived. This, he said, no doubt with perfect 
truth, for he was a sturdy character, served 
only to confirm his devotion to them. 

The democratic influence, as inspired by the 
Declaration of Independence, is further shown 
in the advocacy of the doctrine of expatriation. 
It was maintained that the right to '' liberty " 
and the " pursuit of happiness " embraced in- 
cidentally a right on the part of the individual 
to expatriate himself at will. This view was 



90 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

opposed to the doctrine of the common law, 
to which the courts generally adhered. But 
the executive asserted the right of expatriation 
in limited forms till James Buchanan, as Sec- 
retary of State under Polk, declared it to be un- 
conditional. This contention Buchanan, when 
President, renewed. It was reaffirmed by Con- 
gress in the broadest sense by the act of July 
27, 1868. Beginning with the naturalization 
treaty with the North German Confederation, 
signed at Berlin February 22, 1868, a partial 
but substantial recognition of the claim along 
practical legal lines has been obtained by treaty 
from various governments. 

The political importance of the question of 
expatriation was decidedly enhanced by the 
great increase of immigration after the first 
quarter of the past century. The French Re- 
volution and the striking success of the repub- 
lican experiment in the United States had 
wrought a profound change in European 
thought and feeling. The arrangements of the 
Vienna Congress and the plans of the Holy 
Alliance were swept away by the rising tide of 
nationalism. Before the middle of the cen- 
tury all Europe seemed to be in a democratic 
ferment. Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Frankfort, 



DEMOCBACY 91 

Berlin and all parts of Germany and Italy were 
in a state of revolutionary commotion. Pro- 
ceeding from such conditions, many of tlie im- 
migrants of the time looked to the United 
States not more as the land of opportunity than 
as the land where would be fulfilled their 
dreams of civil and political liberty. To learn 
that they embraced men who did not hesitate 
to risk their lives as apostles of liberalism and 
whose presence added strength to the demo- 
cratic cause, we have only to recount the names 
of Schurz, Sigel, Brentano, Blenker, Hecker, 
and Osterhaus, and last, but not least — honored 
in both hemispheres — that of the living Jacobi. 
If they lived to learn that even in America the 
practical and the ideal are not always the same, 
and that in politics the word ' ' practical ' ' may 
sometimes convey a sinister meaning, it may 
nevertheless be said that, without rancor to- 
wards their native land, they continued to bear 
on, in a spirit of devotion to the land of their 
adoption, the standard of democracy and free- 
dom as the s}Tnbol of their service and their 
faith. 

For certain causes, which will be more fully 
discussed in the succeeding lecture, the later 
course of the great democratic movement, which 



92 AMERICAN DEVELOFMENT 

may be said to have readied its highest level in 
the decade from 1850 to 1860, was overclouded 
by the ominous mntterings of sectional conten- 
tion and strife. Such developments are not to 
be regarded as being due to or as having any 
legitimate connection with the democratic 
movement itself. On the contrary, it is not to 
be doubted that the general sentiment of the 
great American democracy always was and al- 
ways continued to be strongly national. 

The War of 1812 was a popular struggle ad- 
vocated and brought on by leaders who faith- 
fully reflected popular sentiment. 

The same thing may be said as to the genesis 
of the Monroe Doctrine. This was, in its origin, 
a defiance to those who would suppress inde- 
pendent governments and restore the system of 
commercial monopoly and political absolutism 
on the American continents. It was in this 
sense that it found an enthusiastic response in 
popular opinion. That it did not lead to more 
intimate political relations with the govern- 
ments of Latin- America was due to various 
causes, among which were distance, limited 
trade relations, and differences in origin, in 
language and in manners. An appreciable ef- 
fect must also be ascribed to the existence of 



DEMOCEACY 93 

slavery in the United States and its restrain- 
ing influence upon the conduct of foreign rela- 
tions. The states of Spanish-America had 
publicly reprobated slavery and declared its 
abolition. They early espoused the cause of 
Haiti and Santo Domingo, whose independence 
the United States refused to recognize till 1862. 
Moreover, it was evident that the Monroe Doc- 
trine possibly might involve wide responsibili- 
ties. Buenos Aires was more than twice as far 
from New York as New York was from Lon- 
don. Only a great augmentation of the army 
and navy could place the United States in a 
position to enforce the doctrine if the govern- 
ment should be called upon to do so; and such 
an augmentation would excite alarm as a 
menace to the power of the States to preserve 
and defend their particular institutions. All 
these elements must be taken into account in the 
study of the problem. 

Again, in the case of the Mexican War, a 
strong national sentiment was clearly mani- 
fested. Here we find the opponents of slavery 
arrayed against the policy of the government, 
because they believed that it would result in an 
extension of the territory in which slavery 
existed and thus increase the power of the sup- 



94 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

porters of that institution. The war took place 
under an administration that was Democratic 
in the sense of party politics, but in the ensuing 
national campaign the Whigs took care to nom- 
inate as their candidate the military com- 
mander whose victorious career had most ap- 
pealed to the popular fancy. This was not a 
mere coincidence; it was a recognition and an 
acknowledgment of party necessities. It took 
Abraham Lincoln, beloved as he was of the 
common people, ten years to recover from his 
opposition to the war, although as a member of 
Congress he voted for the appropriations to 
carry it on. He was confronted with the ghost 
of his opposition when he came to the great 
debate with Douglas in 1858. As an American 
statesman who had witnessed the scene once re- 
marked to me, the popular sentiment in favor 
of the war swept down the valleys of the Ohio 
and Mississippi like a tempest across the 
prairies. But for the question of slavery, it 
may be affirmed that popular sentiment in favor 
of the annexation of Texas would have been 
substantially undivided. 

The spirit of democracy was not sectional. 
On the contrary, it was broadly patriotic and 
national. True it is that it was Daniel Webster, 



DEMOCBACY 95 

the Whig, who uttered those eloquent words, 
' ' Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and 
inseparable;" but it was Andrew Jackson, the 
leader of the Democratic party and a demo- 
crat in the broadest sense, who met the first ad- 
vance of nullification with the unequivocal de- 
claration, " Our Federal Union: It must be 
preserved." These kindred and indeed iden- 
tical declarations merely gave voice to the na- 
tional spirit of the American democracy. 



LECTUEE III 

Imperialism 

The triumpliant march of the American 
democracy — triumphant in the spread of poli- 
tical and civil liberty as well as in the gen- 
eral diffusion of material benefits — was 
suddenly interrupted by the operation of causes 
whose existence can only be deplored. At the 
close of a decade, than which there has in most 
respects been none more happy in American 
history, dark clouds began to gather. It was 
difficult to believe, nor did there exist among 
the people at large any general belief, that a 
storm was about to burst over the land, up- 
rooting settled traditions and playing havoc 
with political practices and habits of thought. 
On the contrary, a sense of confident immunity, 
growing out of exceptional and almost exces- 
sive good-fortune, made the people incredulous 
as to predictions of impending trouble. 

Moreover, the mutterings of impending dis- 
aster were due to controversies growing out of 
the presence of an institution which was es- 
sentially an excrescence upon the body politic 



IMPERIALISM 97 

— an institution not indigenous to tlie soil or 
congenial to American theories of government 
and of individual right, but exotic and in large 
measure accidental. The introduction of 
African slavery into the British colonies in 
America, even if it could be considered at the 
time as a demerit at all, was not the work of 
any section or of any particular part of the in- 
habitants. Although, after the decision of Lord 
Mansfield in Sommersett's case in 1772,^ the 
relation of master and slave ceased to be re- 
cognized in England, slavery legally existed 
in the British colonies in America, and the trade 
was carried on by those at the North as well as 
by those at the South. In the course of time, 
the holding of slaves became localized in the 
South, as the result of the fact that conditions 
of climate and of soil in that section were fa- 
vorable to the production of staples in the culti- 
vation of which slave labor could be conveni- 
ently emploj^ed. In the latter half of the eigh- 
teenth century, concurrently with the efflores- 
cence of the doctrine of natural rights, there 
came into existence a worldwide reprobation 
of slavery as an institution — a feeling of which 

1 The Case of James . Sommersett, a Negro, 20 Howell's 
State Trials, 1 ; yomerset v. Stewart, 1 Lofft 's Reports, 1. 



98 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

the decision in Sommersett's case was but tlie 
reflection. This sentiment extended to the British 
colonies in America, and after the American 
revolution was shared by political leaders in 
the South as well as in the North. It found 
concrete expression in the convention of 1787 ; 
for, although the Constitution of the United 
States recognized slavery and provided for the 
protection of the rights of the master over the 
slave, it empowered Congress to prohibit the 
importation of slaves after 1808. In due time 
an act was passed ^ to prohibit such importa- 
tion after the first of January in that year. As 
early as 1794, the carrying-on of the slave trade 
from the United States to any foreign country 
was expressly prohibited.^ 

In spite of the fact that, partly as the result 
of the invention of the cotton-gin, the apparent 
profit of slave-holding and the actual value of 
slaves in the South were largely increased, the 
feeling that prevailed among earlier Southern 
statesmen, such as Washington, Jefferson, and 
Madison, that the system of slavery should be 
done away with, did not cease to be entertained 

iMareli 2, 1807. 

2 Aet of Congress of March 22, 1794. 



IMPEBIALISM 99 

in the South. It is true that, during and after 
the civil war, when memories were shortened and 
visions of the past distorted by the passions 
of conflict, the view was industriously propa- 
gated and widely accepted that at an early day 
the profits derived from servile labor, especi- 
ally in the cultivation of cotton, blinded all the 
people of the South to the evils about them and 
welded them into one consistent mass of advo- 
cates and defenders of slavery. This miscon- 
ception is now gradually but surely disappear- 
ing before the advance of historical investiga- 
tion. It is estimated by an eminent authority 
that out of the population of the slave-holding 
communities not more than one in thirty- 
three was a slaveholder; that scarcely one 
white family in five had a property interest 
in slaves; and that, of the slaveholders of 
the South, only a little over one-fifth owned 
more than one slave each, while four-fifths 
owned less than ten.^ The great majority of 
the soldiers of the Confederacy were not own- 
ers of slaves. The same thing may be said of 
Eobert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and A. P. 
Hill, and doubtless of other famous military 
chieftains. Slave holding, like slave sentiment, 

» Hart, Slavery and Abolition, 67-68. 



100 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

was unequally distributed. The situation in 
South Carolina and Mississippi differed widely 
from that in Virginia and Tennessee. Out of 
143 emancipation societies in the United States, 
in 1826, it is stated that 103 were in the South. 
In Virginia, as late as 1832, forty years after 
the invention of the cotton-gin and less than 
thirty years before the civil war, there was in 
progress, in the legislature and among the peo- 
ple, an active movement in favor of the gradual 
emancipation of the slaves, — a movement in 
which a grandson of Jefferson, representing 
one of the largest slave-holding counties of the 
State, was one of the leaders. Virginia was 
indeed but a single State ; but, of all the States 
in the South, if not in the Union, she was the 
one the most venerated and the best beloved. 
Among the fathers of the country her sons were 
pre-eminent ; she was rightly called the Mother 
of Presidents. Her continued leadership in the 
cause of emancipation would have exerted an 
influence which, combined with the public opin- 
ion of the world and the fuller understanding of 
economic forces, would have been of inestim- 
able value ; but the efforts of her emancipation- 
ists were frustrated and the further prosecu- 
tion of their labors was rendered impossible by 



IMPERIALISM IQI 

the breaking-out of the violent abolitionist agi- 
tation outside. 

It is unnecessary here to enter into the ques- 
tion of the personal merits or demerits of the 
abolitionist agitators, either collectively or in- 
dividually — to extol their virtues or to 
censure their defects. We deal with causes 
and effects, and with personal traits and 
motives only in this sense. It is a fact, 
which their warmest partisan would hardly 
deny, that they placed the accomplishment 
of their cherished object above the pre- 
servation of the Constitution and the Union. 
They did not seek to conceal this view; on 
the contrary, they ostentatiously avowed it 
and conspicuously proclaimed it. Garrison 
eventually hoisting to the masthead of the 
Liberator the declaration that the Constitu- 
tion was *' a covenant with death and an 
agreement with hell," involving both North 
and South in " atrocious criminality," and 
that it should be " immediately annulled." 
It is needless to dwell upon the profound and 
radical change wrought in the situation by the 
introduction of this method of warfare, carried 
on in terras of unmeasured denunciation and 
encouraging and supporting local enactments to 



i02 AMEBICAN DEVULOFMENT 

defeat the execution of constitutional provis- 
ions. Lincoln, in his eulogy on Henry Clay, 
more than twenty years after the abolitionist 
crusade began,^ while holding up to censure 
those who for the sake of perpetuating slavery 
assailed the principles of the Declaration of 
Independence, also reprobated, as objects of 
" just execration," those who for the sake of 
immediate abolition would " shiver into frag- 
ments the Union of these States " and '' tear 
to tatters its now venerated Constitution." 
The effect of the new agitation, besides paralyz- 
ing Southern efforts for emancipation, was to 
transform the controversy from one over moral 
right into one over legal right, with the result 
that men united in protecting, even to the point 
of war, the legal right, who differed utterly 
as to the moral right. The distinction is plain 
and is constantly acted upon. 

To say that to defend one's rights against a 
peremptory demand for their abandonment is 
to fight for the doing of all that the law allows 
to be done, is an assertion not justified by logic. 
To go further and assume that the demand will 
be rendered more persuasive by being couched 
in the language of vituperation, is to disregard 

1 The Liberator first appeared January 1, 1831. 



IMPERIALISM 103 

the most elementary manifestations of human 
nature. The control of its fiscal system being 
one of the rights of an independent state, he 
who, because of his belief in free trade, should 
refuse to join in repelling a truculent demand 
upon his government by a foreign power for 
the abolition of protective duties, would be 
counted a recreant citizen and poor patriot; 
and even the circumstance that he regarded the 
collection of such duties as moral robbery, 
would not save him from censure. Such are 
the views and feelings by which human conduct 
is ordinarily controlled, and America is no 
stranger to them. The people and statesmen 
of the South regarded and accepted the aboli- 
tionist agitation as a challenge to take meas- 
ures for the defence of rights expressly guar- 
anteed to them by the Constitution and the 
laws. Meanwhile, doctrines which, if not 
wholly novel, had languished for want of nour- 
ishment, but which were peculiarly adapted to 
the new situation, began to be widely dissem- 
inated, ecclesiastics as well as laymen engaging 
in their propagation. Slavery, instead of be- 
ing excused as a temporary evil, came to be pro- 
claimed as a permanent good. The true foun- 
dation of society was the system of slavery; 



104 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENI 

free laborers were but false props, or, as Ham- 
mond eventually phrased it, ""' mud sills." 
Such were the arguments with which expedi- 
ency, often the unconscious inventor of strange 
doctrines, deluded itself. 

It cannot be denied that the slave interest 
had from the beginning exhibited a certain con- 
cern for its security. Nor does this seem 
strange, when we reflect upon the persistent 
localization of that interest, upon the existence 
of anti-slavery sentiment even among South- 
ern leaders, and upon the fact that the States in 
entering into a national union surrendered in 
many respects the right of free self-determin- 
ation which each State had previously pos- 
sessed uncontested. The States specially in- 
terested in the system wished to retain control 
of it, and, even if its abolition should eventu- 
ally come, desired to abolish it in their own time 
and in their own way. While, therefore, they 
agreed to the suppression of the trade at a fixed 
date, they asked for guarantees for the pre- 
servation of what they already possessed. 
Such guarantees we find in the provision of the 
Constitution for the equal representation of the 
States in the Senate, in the inclusion of slaves 
in the basis of apportionment of members of 



IMPERIALISM 105 

the House of Representatives, and in the clause 
I'or the recovery of fugitives from service or 
labor. 

It was evident, however, that the effective- 
ness of these constitutional provisions for the 
protection of local institutions must depend 
more or less upon the existence of a uniform 
public sentiment and of an equilibrium of 
power in the public councils. Even the rule of 
equal representation in the Senate might prove 
to afford an uncertain and feeble assurance, in 
the presence of a majority from free States 
strongly anti-slavery in sentiment. It was this 
feeling that gave rise to the principle of the 
balance of power, which found expression in 
the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This com- 
promise left behind it little or no trace of bit- 
terness. It was the result of a spirit of friendly 
accommodation on both sides. Nevertheless, 
it was a principle the introduction of which 
boded ill for the future. From the principle of 
democratic individualism, which preceded as 
well as succeeded the formation of the Constitu- 
tion, it radically differed. In that principle 
there was no suggestion of dissension, of sec- 
tional antagonism, or of national disruption. 
States' rights, in this sense, conveyed no im- 



i06 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

plication of disunion. Not so with the principle 
of the balance of power; it imported into the 
relations between the States a political concep- 
tion which, in Europe, had led to bloody and 
exhausting struggles. States' rights, in the 
sense of the balance of power, conveyed the im- 
plication of a sense of danger and foreshadowed 
a future of enmity, strife and dissension. 

It is characteristic of the workings of the prin- 
ciple of the balance of power that, as it is rooted 
in a sense of insecurity, it seeks to safeguard 
itself by obtaining a preponderance, and this 
desire increases in proportion to the sense of 
danger. As the agitation against slavery grew, 
the activity of the defenders of slavery in- 
creased. The spirit of compromise gradually 
disappeared. Calhoun, the ardent advocate of 
the War of 1812, the eloquent proponent of in- 
ternal improvements for the purpose of " con- 
necting more closely the interests of various 
sections of this great country," the strenuous 
supporter of the Monroe Doctrine at the time 
of its promulgation, became the exponent 6f 
nullification and the instinctive antagonist of 
all measures that looked to the enhancement of 
the power of the national government. In or- 
der to moderate the growing estrangement, na- 



IMPEBIALISM 107 

tional men, Whigs and Democrats alike, North 
and South, manifested a constant willingness to 
make concessions. New efforts at compromise 
were made, and the spirit of compromise still 
remained in the air till the pronouncement of 
the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case made 
an adjustment on the geographical basis of 
1820 legislatively impracticable. The declar- 
ation of the court that the Missouri Compro- 
mise was unconstitutional rendered unattain- 
able the proposal to conciliate the interests of 
freedom and slavery by extending the line of 
that compromise to the Pacific Ocean, while the 
slaveholder now refused to surrender the right, 
which the court had declared to belong to him 
under the Constitution, to carry his slaves into 
any of the territories of the United States and 
hold them there in bondage. The contest, upon 
the fair settlement of which any three intelli- 
gent and disinterested men, whose minds were 
not biased by partisanship, should have been 
able to agree in half an hour, began to be 
spoken of as the " irrepressible conflict.'' It 
proved indeed to be irrepressible, but only in 
the sense that controversy had driven men to 
extremes and passion had taken the place of 
reason. 



103 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

In November 1860 Abraham Lincoln was 
elected President of the United States. His 
electoral votes came wholly from North of 
Mason and Dixon's line. A divided Demo- 
cratic party had opened the way to his election. 
The Eepublican platform had denied the au- 
thority of Congress or of a Territorial legisla- 
ture " to give legal existence to slavery in any 
territory of the United States." Immediately 
after the election, a convention was called in 
South Carolina, and in due time the secession 
of the State was determined upon, because the 
party by which Lincoln was elected had, as was 
declared, " announced that the South shall be 
excluded from the common territory." The 
example of South Carolina was soon followed 
by Alabama, G-eorgia, and other Southern 
States; but it was not till after Fort Sumter 
was fired upon, that Virginia and North Caro- 
lina decided to secede. 

The administration of Buchanan, during the 
last four months of which the secession move- 
ment took place, pursued a conciliatory course, 
in the hope that peaceful measures for the pre- 
servation of the Union might be devised, and 
that, if compromise should fail, Congress might 
adopt laws for strengthening the hands of the 



IMPERIALISM 109 

Executive. Among the laws of the United 
States, there were only two statutes by which 
the President was authorized to deal with in- 
surrection or rebellion. B}^ the act of Febru- 
ary 28, 1795,^ entitled "An Act to provide for 
calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of 
the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel in- 
vasions," it was provided (sec. 1) that in case 
the United States should be " invaded " or 
threatened with " invasion," and " in case of 
insurrection in any State, against the govern- 
ment thereof," the President might, on appli- 
cation of the legislature, or of the executive, if 
the legislature could not be convened, call forth 
the militia of any other State for the purpose of 
meeting the invasion or suppressing such in- 
surrection; and that, (sec. 2) in case the "laws" 
of the United States should be " opposed, or 
the execution thereof obstructed, in any State, 
by combinations too powerful to be suppressed 
by the ordinary course of judicial proceed- 
ings," or by the powers vested by the act in 
the United States marshals, it should be law- 
ful for the President to call forth the militia 
of any of the States " to suppress such com- 
binations, and to cause the laws to be duly exe- 

1 1 statutes at Large, 424. 



110 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

cuted." In addition to this statute, there was 
the act of March 3, 1807/ entitled ^'An Act 
authorizing the employment of the land and 
naval forces of the United States, in cases of 
insurrection." By this act it was provided 
" that in all cases of insurrection, or obstruc- 
tion to the laws, either of the United States, or 
of any individual State or territory," where it 
was "lawful for the President . . . to call forth 
the militia for the purpose of suppressing such 
insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly 
executed," it should " be lawful for him to em- 
ploy, for the same purposes, such part of the 
land or naval forces of the United States, as 
shall be judged necessary, having first observed 
all the prerequisites of the law in that respect. ' ' 
Besides these statutes, there were the laws re- 
lating to the collection of the customs. 

In the annual message of President Buchanan 
of December 3, 1860, on the assembling of Con- 
gress, not only was the existing state of federal 
legislation discussed, but the entire political 
situation was reviewed. No State had then 
passed an ordinance of secession, but conven- 
tions had been called in four States — South 
Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Florida — 

1 2 Stats, at Large, 443. 



IMPERIALISM IX]^ 

and the contagion appeared to be spreading. 
At the outset Buchanan declared that the re- 
sult of the presidential election did " not of 
itself afford just cause for dissolving the 
Union," the more especially as Lincoln's elec- 
tion had '' been effected by a mere x^lurality 
and not a majority of the people." The com- 
bined popular vote of Bell, Breckinridge and 
Douglas in fact exceeded that of Lincoln by 
nearly a million.' In order to justify '' re- 
volutionary resistance " the federal govern- 
ment must, said Buchanan, be guilty of " a de- 
liberate, palpable, and dangerous " exercise of 
powers not granted by the Constitution. That 
the federal government was a mere voluntary 
association of States to be dissolved at pleas- 
ure by any one of the contracting parties — a 
" rope of sand " to be dissolved by the first ad- 
verse wave of public opinion in any of the 
States, was, he affirmed, a contention " wholly 
inconsistent with the history as well as the 
character of the federal Constitution, ' ' and was 
met and refuted by Jackson in his message of 
January 16, 1833, on the nullifying ordinance 
of South Carolina. The government created 

1 Bell, 590,631 ; Breckenridge, 847,953 ; Douglas, 1,375,- 
157— total, 2,813,741. Lincoln, 1,866,452. Difference, 947,289. 



112 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

by the Constitution had, declared Buchanan, 
precisely the same right to exercise its power 
over the people of all the States within its ap- 
propriate sphere as the State governments had 
with respect to the subjects not delegated to 
the United States; in short secession was 
" neither more nor less than revolution." 
Meanwhile, what, he inquired, was " the re- 
sponsibility and true position of the Execu- 
tive?" He was " to take care that the laws 
be faithfully executed." This was, said 
Buchanan, at the moment rendered impractic- 
able in South Carolina, so far as the laws for 
the administration of justice by the federal 
judiciary were concerned, all the federal offi- 
cers having resigned, so that there was no 
longer a, district judge, a district attorney, or 
a marshal in the State. By the acts of 1795 
and 1807, the President was, he said, author- 
ized to call forth the militia and employ the 
army and navy to aid a marshal who, with his 
posse comitatus, was unable to execute process, 
but this duty could not be performed where 
there was no judicial authority by which pro- 
cess could be issued. Congress alone had 
power to decide whether the laws could or 
could not be amended so as to carry out more 



IMPEEIALISM 113 

effectually the objects of the Constitution. The 
same insuperable obstacles did not, he affirmed, 
lie in the way of executing the laws for the col- 
lection of the customs. "With regard to the 
property of the United States in South Caro- 
lina, he stated that he did not believe that any 
attempt would be made to expel the United 
States from it, but that, if such an attempt 
should be made, the officer in command had 
been instructed to act strictly on the defensive, 
and that " the responsibility for the conse- 
quences would rightfully rest upon the heads 
of the assailants." 

Buchanan then proceeded to discuss the 
question of the right of Congress " to declare 
and make war against a State " for the pur- 
pose of " coercing " it into submission to the 
Union, and expressed the opinion that no such 
power had been delegated by the Constitution 
to Congress or to any other department of the 
government. Even supposing that such a war 
should result " in the conquest of a State," 
" how," he inquired, " are we to govern it 
afterwards? Shall we hold it as a province 
and govern it by despotic power? In the na- 
ture of things," he continued, " we could not, 
by physical force, control the will of the people 



114 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

and compel them to elect senators and repre- 
sentatives to Congress, and to perform all the 
other duties depending upon their own voli- 
tion and required from the free citizens of a 
free State as a constituent member of the Con- 
federacy." He therefore proposed, as a solu- 
tion of all difSculties, instead of a resort to 
force, the adoption of certain amendments to 
the Constitution. 

This passage on State coercion has been criti- 
cised as being at variance with the principle 
of self-preservation and as offering a loophole 
to secession; but I venture to say that it has 
been much misinterpreted. In support of this 
view it would not suffice to say that the mes- 
sage, in all its parts, closely and often literally 
follows an opinion given to Buchanan by his 
Attorney General, Judge Jeremiah S. Black, 
on November 20, 1860,^ for, although it is ad- 
mitted that Judge Black was a staunch Union 
man, and although it appears that he gave the 
opinion on his own proposal, even preparing 
with his own hand the questions which he 
should be requested to answer, yet, being only 
human, he too might have fallen into error. 

1 9 Opinions of th.6 Attorneys General, 517 ; Works of James 
Buehanan, XI, 20. 



IMPEBIALISM 115 

Nor is it necessary to advert to the circum- 
stance that the message met the approval of 
all the Unionist members of the cabinet, includ- 
ing General Cass, who seems to have desired 
that the disclaimer of State-coercive power un- 
der the Constitution be made more emphatic. 
I desire merely to point out, in the first place, 
that, following the unequivocal denial of the 
right of secession and the assertion of the right 
of the federal government to enforce its own 
laws and defend its own property, the passage 
forms a transition and an introduction to the 
recommendation of measures of compromise; 
and, in the second place, that, in spite of all 
precautions taken, by amendment and other- 
wise, to " preserve the results of the war," the 
difficulty of controlling by force the will of the 
people of a State so as to compel them to elect 
Senators and Eepresentatives and perform 
various other obligations to the Union remains 
today unsolved by any constitutional provision. 
Nor was it in fact solved during the war or 
during the troubled days that followed except 
upon the avowed principle, which confessedly 
lay outside the Constitution and which was first 
conceived in the throes of the great conflict, of 
holding and administering States as conquered 



IIQ AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

provinces. In 1862 the Supreme Court de- 
clared in the Prize Cases ^ that Congress, 
though possessing the power to declare war, 
could not " declare war against a State, or 
against any number of States, by virtue of any 
clause in the Constitution." 

That Buchanan perfectly understood and 
foresaw that, from the exercise of the power 
to execute the federal laws and to defend the 
federal property, war might result, there can 
be no doubt. In connection with the proposals 
of compromise made in his annual message of 
1860 he naturally did not give prominence to 
this phase ; but, in transmitting to Congress on 
January 8, 1861, his correspondence with the 
South Carolina commissioners, whose State 
had then passed the ordinance of secession, al- 
though he again expressed the opinion that he 
" had no right to make aggressive war upon 
any State " and that this power was b}^ the 
Constitution " wisely withheld . . . even from 
Congress," he declared, in italics, that '' the 
right and the duty to use military force de- 
fensively against those who resist the federal 
officers in the execution of their legal functions, 
and against those ivho assail the property of 

1 2 Black, 635, 668. 



IMPERIALISM 117 

the federal government, is clear and undeni- 
able;'' and significantly added: "At the begin- 
ning of these unhappy troubles I determined 
that no act of mine should increase the excite- 
ment in either section of the country. If the 
political conflict were to end in a civil war, it 
was my determined purpose not to commence 
it, nor even to furnish an excuse for it by any 
act of this government." In a letter to a com- 
mittee of the citizens of Chester and Lancaster 
counties, Sept. 28, 1861, he referred to the 
struggle as '' a war which had become inevit- 
able by the assault of the Confederate States 
upon Fort Sumter." And again, in a letter 
to Judge Black, March 4, 1862, he wrote : ' ' They 
[the South] chose to commence civil war, and 
Mr. Lincoln had no alternative but to defend 
the country against dismemberment." 

The state of peace being still unbroken, Lin- 
coln, as his inaugural address foreshadowed, 
continued the conciliatory efforts of his pre- 
decessor. The situation was suddenly and 
radically changed by the shot fired in Charles- 
ton harbor on April 12, 1861. The attack on 
Fort Sumter, so far as it was inspired by the 
belief, which had been distinctly avowed, that 
the shedding of blood would lead Virginia and 



118 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

North Carolina to make common cause with 
their sisters of the South, was well calculated; 
but, in the passionate blindness of the hour, it 
failed to reckon with the national spirit of the 
American democracy, which, if it could not find 
the means of preserving the Union in the letter 
of the law, would grasp them wherever it might 
find them. 

The President proceeded promptly to meet 
the situation. On the 15th of April, he issued 
a proclamation in which, after reciting that the 
laws of the United States were opposed and 
their execution obstructed, in South Carolina, 
Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louis- 
iana, and Texas, '' by combinations too power- 
ful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of 
judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested 
in the marshals by law," he called forth the 
militia to the aggregate of 75,000 men, " in or- 
der to suppress said combinations, and to cause 
the laws to be duly executed." In this pro- 
clamation the President obviously invoked the 
act of 1795 ; but he did not rely solely upon the 
terms of the law. He appealed " to all loyal 
citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid " his " ef- 
fort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and 
existence of our national union, and the per- 



IMFKRIALISM X19 

petuity of popular government." He stated 
that the first service to be performed by the 
forces called forth would be to repossess the 
forts, places and property which had been 
seized from the Union. In conclusion he sum- 
moned Congress to assemble on the 4th of the 
ensuing July, to consider and determine upon 
such measures as the public safety and interest 
might seem to demand. 

Events moved rapidly. On the 19th of April, 
four days after calling forth the militia, the 
President proclaimed a blockade of the ports 
of the seceded States. In this proclamation 
he recited that the revenue laws could not be 
executed in those States, and referred to the 
necessity of protecting the lives and property 
of citizens of the United States engaged in 
maritime commerce; but the blockade was, in 
substance and in effect, a measure of public 
war, and its character as such was soon avowed 
by the Department of State, which advised the 
diplomatic corps that it was to be considered as 
a blockade under the law of nations. On April 
27, Virginia and North Carolina having then 
declared their secession from the Union, the 
blockade was extended to the coasts of those 
States. 



120 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENt 

The legality of these proclamations was 
afterwards passed upon by the Supreme Court 
and was affirmed by a bare majority of five to 
four/ Mr. Justice Nelson, with whom con- 
curred the venerable Chief-Justice Taney, and 
Justices Catron and Clifford, delivered a care- 
ful dissenting opinion, in which he expressed 
the conclusion that no civil war existed between 
the United States and the States in insurrection 
till it was recognized by the act of Congress of 
July 13, 1861; that the President did not pos- 
sess the power under the Constitution to de- 
clare war or recognize its existence within the 
meaning of the law of nations, and thus change 
the country and all its citizens from a state of 
peace to a state of war; that this power be- 
longed exclusively to Congress; that conse>- 
quently the President had no power to set on 
foot a blockade under the law of nations, and 
that all captures before the 13th of July for 
breach of blockade were illegal and void. The 
majority on the other hand held that, in order 
to create a state of public war, or at any rate of 
civil war, no declaration was necessary; that a 
civil contest became a war by its accidents — the 
number, power, and organization of the per- 

1 The Prize Cases, 2 Black, 635. 



IMPERIALISM 121 

sons who originated and carried it on; that the 
President, although he had no power to initiate 
or declare a war, was authorized by the acts of 
1795 and 1807 to call forth the militia and to 
use the military and naval forces of the United 
States to repel invasion or suppress insurrec- 
tion ; that he was bound to resist force by force, 
and that, whether the hostile party was a for- 
eign invader '' or States organized in rebel- 
lion," he was ** bound to accept the challenge, 
without waiting for any special legislative au- 
thority." '' This greatest of civil wars," de- 
clared the court, " was not gradually developed 
by popular commotion, tumultuous assemblies, 
or local unorganized insurrections. However 
long may have been its previous conception, it 
nevertheless sprung forth suddenly from the 
parent brain, a Minerva in the full panopoly of 
ivar. The President was bound to meet it in 
the shape in which it presented itself, without 
waiting for Congress to baptize it with a 
name." 

But the President did not stop with organiz- 
ing an army and instituting a blockade. On 
April 27, the day on which the blockade was ex- 
tended to Virginia and North Carolina, he is- 
sued an order to Gen. Scott, authorizing him 



122 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

personally, or tlirongh the officer in command 
at the point where resistance should occur, to 
suspend the writ of habeas corpus at any point 
on or in the vicinity of any military line be- 
tween Philadelphia and Washington. The rea- 
son given for this order was the " public 
safety, ' ' and the existence of " an insurrection 
against the laws of the United States." ^ Un- 
der this order, various persons were seized. 
Among them was John Merrjonan, of Baltimore 
County, Maryland, who was *' charged with 
holding a commission as lieutenant in a com- 
pany avowing its purpose of armed hostility 
against the Government, with being in com- 
munication with the rebelSj^ and with various 
acts of treason." ^ Merryman was imprisoned 
in Fort McHenry, in command of Gen. George 
Cadwalader. In a petition to Chief-Justice 
Taney, praying for a writ of habeas corpus, he 
stated that he was peaceably in his own house 
with his family, at two o'clock on the morning 
of the 25th of May, when an armed force com- 
pelled him to rise from his bed and took him 
into custody. Chief-Justice Taney granted the 
writ, but, as the military authorities refused to 

1 MePherson 's Hist, of the Eebellion, 177. 

2 MePherson 's Hist, of the Eebellion, 154. 



IMPERIALISM 123 

produce their jDrisoner, the court could only 
confess its inability to hear the case and em- 
body its conclusions in a written opinion. 
Chief -Justice Taney stated that a copy of the 
order under which the prisoner was arrested 
was demanded by his counsel and refused ; that 
it was not alleged in the return to the writ that 
any specific act, constituting an oifence against 
the laws of the United States, had been charged 
against the prisoner upon oath; that he ap- 
peared to have been arrested upon general 
charges of treason and rebellion, without proof 
and without any specification of the acts which, 
in the judgment of the military officer, consti- 
tuted these crimes ; and that the officer refused 
to obey the writ of habeas corpus, on the ground 
that he was authorized by the President to sus- 
pend it. Thus, said the Chief-Justice, great 
and fundamental laws, which Congress itself 
could not suspend, had been disregarded and 
suspended by a military order supported by 
force of arms. The Constitution of the United 
States provides that ' ' the privilege of the writ 
of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless 
when in cases of rebellion or invasion the pub- 
lic safety may require it." Nothing is said as 
to the authority by which the suspension shall 



X24 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

be made ; but the view had been generally held 
that the power was vested in Congress. The 
action of the President was, however, sustained 
by an opinion of his Attorney-General Mr. 
Bates,^ and the opinion of the Chief Justice 
was disregarded. 

Thus, in fifteen days after the firing upon 
Fort Sumter, the office of President of the 
United States became a virtual dictatorship. 
The powers which he exercised were truly im- 
perial. Not only was he employing force for 
the suppression of insurrection, but he was 
conducting a great civil war, capturing the ves- 
sels and property of the citizens of foreign 
powers on the high seas, and was disposing, as 
the public necessities seemed to require, of the 
liberties of individuals not connected with the 
military forces. In his message to Congress, 
upon the assembling of that body in July, he 
affirmed that the measures which he had 
adopted, ' ' whether strictly legal or not, ' ' were 
** ventured upon under what appeared to be a 
popular demand and a public necessity, trust- 
ing then, as now, that Congress would readily 
ratify them. ' ' The President 's confidence was 

1 Opinion of Bates, Attorney-General, July 5, 1861, 10 Opin- 
ions of the Attorneys-General, 74. 



IMPERIALISM 125 

not misplaced. His course was ' ' approved and 
applauded," one Senator indeed, Howe of 
Wisconsin, going so far as to declare that he 
approved it in exact proportion to the extent to 
which it was a violation of the existing law.^ 
Not only did Congress sustain the President, 
but it was not itself sparing in the assumption 
of power. The confiscation act of August 6, 
1861,^ was designed to render possible the 
seizure and condemnation of all property used 
or intended to be used in support of insurrec- 
tion and the forfeiture of slaves bearing arms 
or employed in service or labor against the 
United States. The confiscation act of July 7, 
1862,^ went much farther and in order to pun- 
ish '' treason and rebellion," authorized, in 
excess of previously recognized constitutional 
limitations, the seizure and condemnation of 
the property of all persons who thereafter 
should hold office, military or civil, under the 
Confederacy or any of its States ; who, owning 
property in any loyal State, should give aid and 
comfort to the rebellion ; or who, being engaged 
in the rebellion or aiding and abetting it, should 

1 Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Eeeonstruetion, 18. 

2 12 Stats, at Large, 319. 
s 12 Stats, at Large, 590. 



126 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

notj after public warning and proclamation by 
the President, cease to support it and return 
to bis allegiance to the United States. Popu- 
lar opposition to the President's proclamation 
of September 24, 1862, which was styled '' a 
necessary measure '' of war, declaring martial 
law, led Congress to pass the act of March 3, 
1863, by which the President was expressly au- 
thorized to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. 
By his proclamation of September 15, 1863, *he 
announced a general suspension of the writ. 

Why was it that the people, who had been ac- 
customed to regard their Constitution with al- 
most superstitious veneration, suddenly became 
willing to consider its observance purely as a 
question of policy and in individual instances 
even to regard its violation as a cause for exul- 
tation? Why were they ready to dispense with 
its guarantees and to live outside of its pro- 
visions under what was practically a Roman 
dictatorship? Simply and solely because of 
the imperial and imperious demand — general, 
heartfelt and insistent — for the preservation of 
the Union. This sentiment has by no one been 
more unequivocally acknowledged than by Lin- 
coln himself in his famous letter to Horace 



IMPERIALISM 127 

Greeley.^ In this letter Lincoln, while stating 
that he intended no modification of his '' oft- 
expressed personal wish that all men every- 
where could be free, ' ' declared : ' * I would save 
the Union . . . The sooner the national author- 
ity can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 
' the Union as it was.' If there be those who 
would not save the Union unless they could at 
the same time save slaver}^, I do not agree 
with them. If there be those who would not 
save the Union unless they could at the same 
time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. 
My paramount object in this struggle is to save 
the Union, and is not either to save or to de- 
stroy slavery." And if, in order to save the 
Union, imperial powers must be assumed, then 
the people would have imperialism. 

The demand for the preservation of the 
Union was not confined to the adherents of any 
political party. It proceeded from national 
men of all parties. Although it became the 
fashion to claim, after the Union was restored, 
that it was saved by the Eepublican party, 3^et, 
as a learned colleague of mine has lately pointed 
out,^ there was effected, after 1862, in which 

1 August 22, 1862. 

2 Dunning, The Second Birth of the Bepublican Party, 16 
Ajn. Hist. Eev., 56. 



128 AMEEICAN DEVELOFMJENT 

year the results of the elections were most dis- 
couraging to the Eepublicans, a fusion of War 
Democrats and Eepublicans under the name of 
the Union party, the declared purpose of which 
was to maintain the integrity of the Union at 
all costs. This movement culminated in the 
national convention at Baltimore in 1864, rep- 
resenting the Union party and comprising, as 
the chairman declared, men of all shades of pre- 
vious political affiliation — " primitive Eepubli- 
cans and primitive Abolitionists . . . primi- 
tive Democrats and primitive Whigs . . . pri- 
mitive Americans. ' ' It was as nominees of this 
convention and as candidates of the Union 
party that Abraham Lincoln and Andrew 
Johnson ran and were elected. 

We have seen that Lincoln expressed a wish 
for the restoration of ''the Union as it was." 
This desire he continued to cherish. This was 
shown by his efforts to enable the loyal inhabi- 
tants of Louisiana and Arkansas to reorganize 
their State governments. He had had enough 
of strife and longed for the restoration of tran- 
quillity and good feeling. By his proclamation 
of December 8, 1863, he offered to recognize 
State governments set up by loyal persons 
equal in number to one-tenth of the voting 



IMPEEIALISM 129 

population of 1860. The policy of restora- 
tion was continued by Johnson on the conditions 
(1) of the annulment or rescission of the or- 
dinances of secession, (2) of the repudiation of 
the war debts, and (3) of the ratification of the 
Xlllth Amendment, which confirmed the aboli- 
tion of slavery. The emancipation of the slaves 
had been proclaimed by Lincoln in the exercise 
of his war powers, as commander-in-chief of 
the army and navy. It was thought to be de- 
sirable that the act should have express con- 
stitutional sanction. It was therefore provided 
by the Xlllth Amendment that neither slavery 
nor involuntary servitude, except as a punish- 
ment for crime, should exist within the United 
States or in an^^ place subject to their juris- 
diction; and that Congress should have power 
to enforce this article by appropriate legis- 
lation. On December 18, 1865, the Amend- 
ment was officially proclaimed, twenty-seven 
States having ratified it, including eight that 
had seceded. All the seceding States, except 
Florida and Texas, had then reorganized their 
governments, and the President urged Con- 
gress to complete the work of restoration. But 
other views were coming to prevail in Congress. 
The work of restoration had been carried out 
9 



130 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

on the principle that the States were inde- 
structible; that, while they had assumed and 
for a time maintained an attitude of insur- 
rection towards the Union, they had never 
legally been out of it; and that on the termin- 
ation of hostilities they would, upon the accept- 
ance of certain conditions, resume their ac- 
customed place in the constitutional system. 
This principle had been accepted as axiomatic. 
It pervaded the earlier legislation of the war 
and inspired the course of both Lincoln and 
Johnson, although the latter indeed went so far 
as to propound a theory of suspended anima- 
tion. But views far more radical were coming 
to prevail. In place of the principle of State 
indestructibility, Mr. Sumner announced the 
theory of " State suicide." Others preferred 
the phrase ^' forfeited rights," But, by what- 
ever name it might be called, it meant that 
the States might be treated as conquered ter- 
ritory till Congress should see fit to restore to 
them their rights. This theory, though revolu- 
tionary in its nature, was suited to the exigen- 
cies of the time, when statesmen could scarcely 
tell whether their conduct was guided by lust 
of power or by zeal for human rights. No 
doubt both motives were combined in tli-- d<^- 



IMPEBIALIUM i;^| 

rnand for '' the preservation of the results of 
the war." This demand came to embrace the 
elective franchise for the freedmen. The Civil 
Rights Bill, although vetoed by Johnson, was 
passed over his veto, and was embodied in the 
XlVth Amendment to the Constitution, which 
was proposed to the States in 1866. The South- 
ern States refused to ratify it. Moreover, for 
the purpose of controlling the liberated slaves, 
they passed vagrancy and apprenticeship laws, 
which were regarded and denounced at the 
North as measures designed to nullify the ef- 
fects of emancipation and restore the freedmen 
virtually to a condition of servitude.^ 

Proceeding then, in the midst of strong pub- 
lic feeling, upon the conquered-province theory. 
Congress inaugurated the imperialistic policy 
of military " reconstruction." Under the act 
of March 2, and the supplemental acts of March 
23 and July 19, 1867,- the Southern States were 
divided into five districts and placed under 
military authority; the blacks were enfran- 
chised and tests applied by which the whites 

1 These laws are severely attacked by Blaine, Thirty Years 
of Congress, II, 93-103; they are ably defended by Herbert, 
Why the Solid South? or, Reconstruction and its Results, 31-36. 

2 14 Stats, at Large, 428 ; 15 id., 2, 14. 



132 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

were disfranchised; and, in place of the re- 
stored governments, there were set np in this 
way new governments, by which the XlVth 
Amendment was ratified. An attempt to obtain 
a decision by the Supreme Court on the con- 
stitutionality of the reconstruction laws was 
frustrated by the repeal by Congress of the 
statute under which the appeal was taken/ 
The XlVth Amendment was proclaimed in 
1868. It declared that all persons, born or na- 
turalized in the "United States, and subject to 
the jurisdiction thereof, were citizens of the 
United States, and of the State wherein they 
resided; that no State should make or enforce 
any law which should ''abridge the privileges 
or immunities of citizens of the United States" ; 
and that no State should ''deprive any person 
of life, liberty, or property, without due process 
of law, or deny to any person, within its juris- 
diction, the equal protection of the laws." If 
the right to vote was denied or abridged, ex- 
cept for participation in rebellion or other 
crime, the basis of representation in such State 

1 Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wallace, 506. The repealing act 
was passed, was vetoed by the President, and was re-passed 
over his veto, after the case was argued on the merits and 
taken under advisement, but before the judges had met in con- 
ference upon the decision proper to be made. 



IMPERIALISM X33 

was to be proportionately diminished. The 
validity of the public debt of the United States 
was affirmed, and the pajinent of any claim for 
the loss or emancipation of slaves was for- 
bidden. By the XVth Amendment, which was 
proposed in 1869, and proclaimed in 1870, it 
was provided that the right of citizens of the 
United States to vote should not be " denied or 
abridged by the United States, or by any State, 
on account of race, color, or previous condition 
of servitude." 

These amendments, which Congress was em- 
powered to enforce by appropriate legislation, 
were designed to afford to the freedmen full 
political and civil rights throughout the United 
States. It soon became evident, however, that 
the political supremacy of the negro could be 
preserved only by military force. The freed- 
men, necessarily without knowledge of or ex- 
perience in the exercise of political power, 
often exhibited little inclination to exercise their 
new political rights, even when exhorted and 
encouraged by their political leaders so to do. 
For ten years the struggle went on, but the 
opposition to negro rule, sullen or active ac- 
cording to circumstances, continued, and in the 
end the attempt to maintain the political power 



134 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

of the blacks was abandoned, its end being has- 
tened by the striking corruption and profligacy 
of some of the so-called reconstruction gov- 
ernments. 

Nor did the Supreme Court of the United 
States, when called upon to construe the con- 
stitutional amendments, go to the lengths which 
perhaps were originally expected. Judicial 
tribunals naturally lean towards conservatism ; 
that the Supreme Court shares this inclina- 
tion is shown by its decisions in the Slaughter 
House cases and in cases arising under the Civil 
Eights Act. 

But the occasional conservatism of judicial 
utterances could hardly mislead us into sup- 
posing that the government of the United 
States could ever again revert to the position 
which it held prior to the civil war. The as- 
sumption, by President and by Congress, of im- 
perial powers during that great conflict, the 
forcible assertion of national and even party 
supremacy by the central government after its 
close, and the embodiment of these claims of au- 
thority in acts of legislation and constitutional 
amendments, had produced changes which 
could not be undone and which there was no 
general desire to undo. While the people 



IjlFKlllALlUM 135 

grew weary of and brought to an end what 
they conceived to be excesses of power, they felt 
no disposition to relinquish the fundamental 
claims of authority through the exercise of 
which they had preserved the national unity. 
On the contrary, with the national develop- 
ment, new needs arose for the exercise of na- 
tional authority; new directions for the exer- 
cise of national power were revealed; social 
life, as well as political, became more complex. 
Especially was this the case with regard to 
commerce. In the development of commerce 
between the States and with foreign nations, 
conditions arose and continued to arise with 
which the State governments were powerless to 
deal. In consequence, there was passed the 
Interstate Commerce Act, which merely fur- 
nished the foundation for a series of measures 
which have brought commerce more and more 
under the control of the federal government. 
And the end is not yet. To separate and dis- 
tinguish infrastate trade from interstate trade 
becomes more and more difficult, while the ten- 
dency to solve the difficulty by bringing the 
former within the sphere of the latter becomes 
more and more apparent. He would be a rash 
man, who should assume to prophesy the even- 



J36 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

tual limits by which the national control over 
commerce is to be stayed. Nor is the fact to 
be lost sight of that in the development of in- 
tercourse, good neighborhood and co-operation 
among nations the treaty-making power is 
steadily being applied to an increasing number 
of subjects, and that the treaty-making power 
is not generally subject to the limitations by 
which the power of legislation is circum- 
scribed. 

As an illustration of how the exercise of the 
power to regulate intercourse among the States 
may be capable of interesting development, we 
may refer to the case of the Chicago Strike in 
1894. In June of that year the workmen em- 
ployed in the shops of Pullman's Palace Car 
Company struck against a reduction of wages 
and, the company having refused to refer the 
dispute to arbitration, the President of the 
American Eailway Union, representing a large 
number of organized railway workers, ordered 
a sympathetic boycott of Pullman cars. Wide- 
spread disorders ensued, and traffic was inter- 
fered with by violent means. Injunctions 
against the rioters were issued by the federal 
courts, and the leader of the American Rail- 
way Union was arrested. President Cleveland, 



IMPERIALISM 137 

on the first of July, gave orders for the pro- 
tection of the mails and of interstate commerce 
by regular troops; and a few days later, riot- 
ing at Chicago having become general and 
many cars having been burned and damaged, 
he issued a proclamation calling on the mobs to 
disperse, on pain of being dealt with as public 
enemies. Order was immediately re-established 
in Chicago, and uninterrupted traffic resumed 
on the railways at that point and other places. 
President Cleveland's action in sending troops 
to the scene of disturbances, without awaiting a 
requisition of the State authorities, was pro- 
tested against by the governor of Illinois and 
was a subject of much heated discussion ; but it 
was at the time approved with little opposition 
by both houses of Congress, as well as by the 
public, and it afterwards received the sanction 
of the Supreme Court. 

The tendency, which has been so signally 
manifested since 1860, to exercise imperial 
powers in domestic affairs, has been no less 
strikingly exhibited in foreign affairs. 

The Monroe Doctrine, if considered with re- 
ference to the responsibilities which it poten- 
tially involved, was always imperial in its pro- 
portions. One cannot fail, however, to note 



138 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

the fact that, in its tone and its tendencies, it 
has undergone a marked transformation. This 
tendency towards its transformation may first 
be seen in the special message of President 
Polk to Congress of April 29, 1848, in relation 
to Yucatan. An Indian outbreak having oc- 
curred in that country, the authorities offered 
to transfer " the dominion and sovereignty " 
to the United States, and at the same time made 
a similar offer to Great Britain and Spain. 
President Polk recommended the occupation of 
the territory by the United States, and, in so 
doing, declared that " we could not consent to 
a transfer of this ' dominion and sovereignty ' 
to either Spain, Great Britain, or any other 
power. ' ' This pronouncement went beyond the 
declaration of President Monroe, which as- 
serted the right of American States, whose in- 
dependence the United States had acknowl- 
edged, to dispose of themselves as they saw 
fit, and was directed against the interposition 
of European powers to control their destiny 
against their will. Jolm. Quincy Adams, by 
whom the declaration was formulated, ex- 
pressed the idea in his diary thus : 

" Considering the South Americans as inde- 
pendent nations, they themselves, and no other 



IMPERIALISM 139 

nation, had the right to dispose of their condi- 
tion. We have no right to dispose of them, 
either alone or in conjunction with other na- 
tions. Neither have any other nations the right 
of disposing of them without their consent." 

The declaration of President Polk would for- 
bid the acquisition of dominion by a European 
power, even by voluntary transfer or cession; 
but, while his declaration rested upon intelli- 
gible and reasonable grounds and was expressly 
confined to North America, it represented a 
step forward in political conceptions. 

A stage far in advance was reached in the 
utterances of Mr. Olney, as Secretary of State, 
and of President Cleveland, in the case of the 
Venezuelan boundary. While affirming that the 
particular object of the United States in that 
case was to prevent an American power from 
being forcibly deprived by a European power 
of its independence — an object which undoubt- 
edly comes within the spirit of President 
Monroe's declaration — Mr. Olney boldly de- 
clared: " To-day the United States is practi- 
cally sovereign on this continent and its fiat is 
law upon the subjects to which it confines its 
interposition." Surely it must be admitted 
that no declaration more imperialistic was ever 



140 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

made by an American statesman; nor is its 
imperialistic lustre dimmed by the explanation, 
which Mr. Olney proceeds to make, that this 
paramount position of the United States on the 
American continent is due not simply to its 
high character, or to the fact that wisdom and 
justice and equity are its invariable character- 
istics, but also to the circumstance that ' ' its in- 
finite resources combined with its isolated posi- 
tion render it master of the situation and prac- 
tically invulnerable as against any or all other 
powers," Mr. Olney is a statesman of conser- 
vative tendencies, and an advocate of the reign 
of law. He negotiated with Great Britain a re- 
markable treaty of arbitration, which the 
Senate, apparently on account of the compre- 
hensiveness of its provisions, failed to approve. 
His attitude of restraint towards intervention 
in Cuba was well illustrated by the story that, 
when a certain naval officer remarked to him, 
" Mr. Secretary, I'd like to bring you a box of 
cigars from Havana," he promptly retorted, 
" I don't smoke." When the contemplation of 
our power excites in a statesman of such 
solid character and abstemious habits extra- 
ordinary exuberance of speech, must it not 
be confessed that there is a certain exuber- 



IMPERIALISM 14]^ 

ance in our blood? President Cleveland, in 
turn, in recommending to Congress the cre- 
ation of a commission to investigate and re- 
port upon the boundary question, expressed the 
opinion that it would be the duty of the United 
States to resist by every means in its power, as 
a wilful aggression upon its rights and inter- 
ests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any 
lands or the exercise by her of governmental 
jurisdiction over any territory which " we " 
should decide to belong to Venezuela. So far 
as this language seemed to imply that the 
United States possessed the right by itself au- 
thoritatively to fix the boundary between two 
other independent nations, it probably went be- 
yond President Cleveland's intention; for, in 
another part of his message, he stated that any 
adjustment of the boundary into which Vene- 
zuela might enter of her own free will could not 
be objected to by the United States — a conces- 
sion potentially involving a very substantial 
abatement from the claim that the United 
States was sovereign and its fiat law on the 
American continents. 

A new and still later application of the 
Monroe Doctrine is that which was made by 
President Roosevelt in the case of Santo 



142 AMEBIC AN DE VELOPMENT 

Domingo. February 15, 1905, he transraitted to 
the Senate a treaty under which the United 
States agreed to undertake the adjustment of 
all Dominican debts, domestic and foreign, and 
to that end to take charge of and administer 
the custom houses. In the message accompany- 
ing the treaty, President Eoosevelt stated that 
conditions in Santo Domingo had for many 
5'ears been growing steadily worse, that there 
had been many disturbances and revolutions, 
and that debts had been contracted beyond the 
power of the republic to pay. Those who pro- 
fited by the Monroe Doctrine must, he affirmed, 
accept certain responsibilities along with the 
rights which it conferred; and the justification 
for assuming the responsibility proposed in the 
present instance was to be found in the fact 
that it was incompatible with international 
equity for the United States to refuse to allow 
other powers to take the only means at their 
disposal of satisfying the claims of their citi- 
zens and yet to refuse itself to take any such 
steps. Under the Monroe Doctrine the United 
States could not, said President Eoosevelt, see 
any European power '' seize and permanently 
occupy ' ' the territory of an American republic, 
and yet such seizure might eventually offer the 



IMPERIALISM 143 

only way in which such a power could collect 
any debts, unless the United States should in- 
terfere. In these circumstances the United 
States should, he maintained, take charge of 
the custom-houses. The treaty was not ap- 
proved by the Senate ; but a later treaty, signed 
February 8, 1907, carrying out the principal 
object on the basis of an actual adjustment with 
creditors meanwhile accomplished, was duly 
ratified, and put into effect, and under its pro- 
visions the Dominican customs are now admin- 
istered. 

A transformation similar to that which the 
Monroe Doctrine has undergone may be ob- 
served in the case of the interoeeanic canal. 
Originally, the canal was conceived of as a high- 
way open to all nations and neutralized by the 
action of all ; and it was not imagined that the 
United States had the constitutional power 
either to construct such a way by its own 
means or to charter a company for that pur- 
pose. On June 21, 1849, Elijah Hise concluded 
a treaty with Nicaragua granting to the United 
States the *' exclusive right and privilege " to 
build an interoeeanic way through that country. 
By this treaty it was provided (Art. Ill) that, 
if the United States should not construct the 



144 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

work, then either the President or Congress 
should issue a charter to someone for the pur- 
pose. In the debates in the Senate, in March 
1853, on the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, Mr. Clay- 
ton, in adverting to the fact that the Hise treaty 
was never submitted to that -body, declared that 
he had never yet met with any man of any 
party, who supposed that the government of the 
United States had the power to make improve- 
ments outside of the United States and their ter- 
ritories. Pie repeatedly recurred to the subject, 
and reiterated his belief that there was not a 
man in the Senate who would contend that the 
United States could either build the canal or 
grant an act of incorporation for the purpose. 
Not a Senator on either side of the chamber, in 
the course of the long running debates, rose to 
question Clayton's statement. No one went 
further than to contend that the canal, when 
built, should be exclusively protected by the 
United States without entering into an agree- 
ment with any other power; and there were 
few who went so far as this. After the civil 
war the tone of governmental and public ut- 
terances changed. The demand for a canal un- 
der exclusive American control became general. 
In time an act of incorporation was granted by 



IMPERIALISM ]^45 

Congress to a construction company. Even- 
tually, definite steps were taken by the govern- 
ment of the United States to build the canal 
either by its own means or through a chartered 
company. Soon afterwards a strip of territory 
was acquired by treaty from the new Republic 
of Panama, against whose recognition the gov- 
ernment of Colombia, the prior sovereign, had 
protested. With reference to this transaction, 
Colonel Roosevelt is reported lately to have 
said that President Roosevelt ''took" the ter- 
ritory,' a phrase which, even if it does not im- 
ply the exercise of a power which Mr. Olney 
would call '' sovereign," sounds somewhat im- 
perialistic. The declaration has at any rate 
had the effect of reviving past discussions. In 
President Roosevelt's annual message of De- 
cember 7, 1903, it was explained that the detach- 
ment of the territory from Colombia was not 
unconnected with his vigorous maintenance of 
peace and good order along the transit route 

1 Colonel Eoosevelt, March 23, 1911, in an address at the 
University of California, as quoted in the press, said: " I am 
interested in the Panama Canal because I started it. If I had 
followed traditional, conservative methods I would have sub- 
mitted a dignified state paper of probably two hundred pages 
to Congress, and the debate on it would have been going on 
yet; but I took the Canal Zone, and let Congress debate, and 
■while the debate goes on, the canal does also," 

10 



146 AMEBICAN DEVELOFMENX 

under Article XXXV of the treaty with New 
Granada of 1846 ; and we were further assured 
by his special message of January 4, 1904, and 
had rested in the assurance, that the same re- 
sult might be ascribed to his exceptional but 
justifiable recognition and protection of the in- 
dependence of the Eepublic of Panama, where- 
by Article XXXV, which an experienced di- 
plomatist of legal antecedents described with 
technical accuracy as a ' ' covenant running with 
the land," proved itself to be an agile as well 
as faithful attendant. Probably Colonel Eoose- 
velt, in using the word ' ' took, ' ' intended merely 
to emphasize the fact that as President he as- 
sumed the responsibility of acting in the mat- 
ter without first consulting Congress/ But, 
the significant fact is that, the territory having 
been acquired, the United States promptly en- 
tered upon the building of the canal by its own 
means, and is now taking effectual measures to 
fortify it. 

1 In The OutlooTc of October 6, 1911, Colonel Roosevelt recurs 
to the message of 1903 and 1904, and defends liis action as 
President substantially in this sense. 



LECTUEE IV 

Expansion 

In 1898 there was witnessed in the United 
States a spectacle not nncommon in times of 
exceptional activity, when the public mind is 
stirred by war or other disturbing incidents. At 
such times it usually happens that propensities 
and tendencies that have long been at work are 
revealed to the popular comprehension with ex- 
ceptional clearness. To many to whom the 
light has just come it seems as if a new era had 
been entered upon. Thus it was that in 1898 
our begoggled seers began to run about and 
proclaim the discovery that the United States 
had become a "■ World Power." The people 
of the United States had indeed founded upon 
the wreck of the old colonial system a great 
republic; they had established a constitution 
which marked an epoch in governmental de- 
velopment ; they had laid the foundations of the 
system of neutrality; they had materially con- 
tributed to the establishment of the freedom 
of the seas, had announced the doctrine of ex- 

147 



148 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

patriation and had proclaimed the Monroe Doc- 
trine. They had penetrated with their trade 
the most distant parts of the globe and had been 
the chief instrument in opening one of the great 
empires of the Far East to the commerce and 
residence of foreigners. Nevertheless, we were 
assured not only that we had become a ' ' World 
Power " but that we had become so by reason 
of a rapid victory over a European power, 
weak in military and naval resources, as the 
result of which we had acquired some distant 
islands. We were advised that we had entered 
upon a policy of ' ' expansion ' ' ; and this assur- 
ance was given as if expansion were an entirely 
new thing in our history, and involved ques- 
tions which we had never before been obliged 
to consider. 

It is true that the expansion of 1898 involved, 
so far as concerns the Philippine Islands, the 
taking of a step geographically in advance of 
any that had been taken before; but so far 
as concerns the acquisition of new territory we 
were merely following a habit which had char- 
acterized our entire national existence. 

We have indeed seldom confessed that we de- 
sired new territory; our general attitude has 
rather been that of the Washington correspon- 



EXPANSION 149 

dent of a leading New York newspaper who re- 
cently declared, " We do not want more terri- 
tory any more than we want fish bones in our 
coffee." But in spite of our distaste for this 
uncanny admixture of foreign and domestic 
products, the fish bones have continued to ap- 
pear in our cups and we have continued to gulp 
them down without any specially unseemly 
grimaces. 

To the founders of the American Republic, 
the question of territorial expansion did not 
present itself as a matter of theoretical specu- 
lation or even of choice. There was not a single 
European power having possessions in America 
that did not lay claim to more territory than it 
effectively occupied, nor was there a single one 
whose claims were not contested by some other 
power. With the contests for territory there 
were interwoven the struggles for the estab- 
lishment of colonial monopolies in commerce 
and in navigation. The Spaniards and the 
Portuguese, the English and the French, the 
Swedes and the Dutch, contended with one an- 
other in Europe as well as in America for em- 
pire on the American continents. Their colon- 
ists knew no rules of life but that of conflict, 
and they regarded the extension of their boun- 



150 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

daries as a measure of self-defense rather tlian 
of aggression. 

In the plan of a treaty which the Committee 
of Secret Correspondence of the Continental 
Congress prepared in the early days of the 
American revolution for submission to France, 
it was expressly declared that the most Chris- 
tian king should never invade nor attempt to 
possess himself of any of the countries on the 
continent of North America, either to the north 
or to the south of the United States, nor of any 
islands lying near that continent, except such 
as he might take from Great Britain in the 
West Indies ; but that, with this exception, the 
sole and perpetual possession of the countries 
and islands belonging to the British Crown 
should be reserved to the United States. In 
the Treaty of Alliance which was concluded 
with France on February 6, 1778, this principle 
was carefully preserved. While the United 
States guaranteed to France the latter 's exist- 
ing possessions in America as well as any which 
she might acquire by the future treaty of peace, 
it was expressly stipulated that the United 
States, in the event of seizing the remaining 
British possessions in North America or the 
Bermuda Islands, should be permitted to bring 



EXPANSION j_51 

them into the Confederacy or to hold them as 
" dependencies." The King of France re- 
nounced them forever, reserving only the right 
to capture and hold any British Islands in or 
near the Gulf of Mexico. 

It was altogether in harmony with these 
stipulations that the Articles of Confederation 
(Article VI) provided: '' Canada acceding to 
this Confederation, and joining in the meas- 
ures of the United States, shall be admitted 
into and entitled to all the advantages of this 
Union." No other colony was to be so ad- 
mitted without the consent of nine States ; and 
unless they consented, the colony, if seized, was 
to remain in a " dependent " position. When 
the Eevolution came to an end, Canada and the 
British islands remained in British control. 
But the boundaries accorded to the United 
States by the Treaty of Peace were far more 
generous than the diplomatists of Europe had 
expected or than British statesmen had been ac- 
customed to contemplate. Their northern ex- 
tension may be seen on the map of the United 
States today by following the long winding line 
from Passamaquoddy Bay to the Lake of the 
Woods. On the west, the Mississippi River 
formed the frontier as far south as the thirty- 



152 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

first parallel of north latitude. From that 
point to the Atlantic Ocean the territory of the 
United States bordered upon the Spanish pos- 
sessions, which then embraced both East 
Florida and West Florida. 

With the independence of the United States 
a new force entered into the territorial conflicts 
in America, but it did not alter their essential 
character. It was in order to obtain relief 
from burdensome conditions that the United 
States acquired Louisiana. Questions of dis- 
puted boundary and commercial restriction 
vexed and hampered the new member of the 
family of nations. Of all the commercial re- 
strictions, that which promised to be least en- 
durable was the claim of Spain as the proprie- 
tor of the banks to the exclusive navigation of 
the Mississippi Eiver. The claim of exclusion 
which Spain asserted was not novel; the prin- 
ciple had come to be generally accepted in 
Europe. But it was conceived to be inconsis- 
tent with the doctrines of natural right which 
found their expression in the revolution in 
America and the revolution in France, and the 
United States were unwilling to submit to it. 
To the inhabitants of the west the Mississippi 
Eiver was, as Madison once declared, '' the 



EXPANSION 153 

Hudson, Delaware, Potomac and all the navig- 
able rivers of the Atlantic States formed into 
one stream." 

During the dark hours of the American re- 
volution the Continental Congress seemed at 
one time to be ready to yield to Spain in return 
for her alliance her exclusive claims, but hap- 
pily this was not done. In the Treaty of Peace 
the United States, acting on the supposition 
that the Mississippi was navigable in British 
territory, agreed that its navigation should for- 
ever remain free and open to British subjects; 
but, south of the thirty-first parallel of north 
latitude, this freedom of navigation it was not 
within the power of the United States to as- 
sure. Spain continued to maintain her exclu- 
sive claims. The opposition to them in the 
United States grew stronger and louder till at 
length Spain on October 27, 1795, encompassed 
by many perils in her foreign relations, con- 
ceded to the United States the free navigation 
of the river, together with the pri\dlege of de- 
jDOsiting merchandise at New Orleans and then 
exporting it without payment of duty. The 
inestimable benefit of this arrangement was 
daily growing more manifest when, early in 
1801, rumors began to prevail that Spain had 



154 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

ceded both Louisiana and the Floridas to 
France. As a neighbor Spain, on account of 
the internal weakness of her government and 
the consequent unaggressiveness of her foreign 
policy, was not feared, but apprehension had 
from the first been exhibited by the United 
States as to the possibility of being hemmed in 
by colonies of England and France. If the 
rumor of cession should prove to be true, the 
arrangement with Spain for the free naviga- 
tion of the Mississippi and the right of entrepot 
was threatened with extinction. The feeling 
which these apprehensions excited was vividly 
expressed by Jefferson in a letter which he 
wrote as President to Eobert R. Livingston, 
then minister of the United States at Paris, ^ in 
which he declared that the cession of Louisiana 
and the Floridas by Spain to France would com- 
pletely reverse all the political relations of the 
United States and form a new epoch in their 
political course. There was, he affirmed, on 
the globe one single spot the possessor of which 
was " our natural and habitual enemy," and 
that was " New Orleans," through which the 
produce of three-eights of the territory of the 
United States must pass to market, a territory 

1 Aprn 18, 1802. 



EXPANSION 155 

the fertility of which would ere long yield more 
than half of their entire produce and contain 
more than half of their inhabitants. The 
pacific dispositions of Spain and her feeble 
state would, he said, induce her to increase the 
facilities of the United States, but it could not 
be so in the hands of France with her impetuos- 
ity, energy and restlessness; and Jefferson, 
who, although peaceful himself, well under- 
stood the character and temper of his country- 
men, declared that the American people though 
quiet, peace loving, and pursuing wealth, were 
high minded, despising wealth in competition 
with insult or injury, and as enterprising and 
energetic as any nation on earth. 

The treaty by which Spain ceded Louisiana to 
France was signed at San Idlefonso on October 
1, 1800, but it was not published; in fact, even 
its existence was denied. It did not embrace 
the Floridas but included the whole of the vast 
domain then known as Louisiana, a domain out 
of which have since been carved the States of 
Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minne- 
sota, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North 
Dakota, and Montana, parts of the States of 
Colorado, Wyoming, and Oklahoma, and what 
remains of the Indian Territory. The ad- 



156 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

ministration at Washington, though in the dark 
as to what had actually taken place, felt the 
necessity of action; it desired, if possible, to 
prevent the transfer of the territory, or, if this 
could not be accomplished, to obtain from 
France the Floridas if they were included in 
the cession, — or at least West Florida, — so as 
to give to the United States a continuous 
stretch of territory from the Lake of the Woods 
to the Gulf of Mexico on the eastern bank of the 
Mississippi. 

Early in 1802 a report reached Washing*ton 
that the Spanish intendant at New Orleans had 
suspended the right of deposit. It was soon 
learned that the suspension was not author- 
ized by the Spanish government, but the act 
of the intendant gave rise to energetic discus- 
sions in Congress. A resolution was adopted 
by the House declaring that the stipulated 
rights of the United States in the Mississippi 
would be inviolably maintained, while a reso- 
lution was offered in the Senate to authorize 
the President to take forcible possession of 
such places as might be necessary to secure 
their full enjoyment. The state of public feel- 
ing was such that every branch of the govern- 
ment felt obliged to take measures not only 



EXPANSION 157 

to preserve existing rights, but also, if pos- 
sible, to enlarge and safeguard tliem. With 
this end in view, James Monroe was joined 
with Livingston in an extraordinary commis- 
sion to treat with France, and with Charles 
Pinckney in a like commission to treat, if neces- 
sary, with Spain. The specific objects of the 
mission, as defined in the instructions given by 
Madison, as Secretary of State, on March 2, 
1803, were the cession to the United States of 
the island of New Orleans and the Floridas. 

Meanwhile, Livingston had, if possible, re- 
doubled his exertions. His favorite plan was 
to obtain from France the cession of the island 
of New Orleans and all that part of Louisiana 
lying northward of the Arkansas Eiver ; and he 
also urged the cession of West Florida, if 
France had obtained it from Spain. On Mon- 
day, April 11, he held with Talleyrand a me- 
morable and startling interview. Livingston 
was expatiating upon the subject of New 
Orleans, when Talleyrand quietly inquired 
whether the United States desired the '' whole 
of Louisiana. ' ' Livingston answered that their 
wishes extended only to New Orleans and the 
Floridas, though policy dictated that France 
should also cede the country above the river 



X58 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

Arkansas ; but Talleyrand observed that, if tliey 
gave New Orleans, the rest would be of little 
value, and asked what the United States would 
*' give for the whole." Livingston suggested 
the sum of 20,000,000 francs, provided the 
claims of American citizens were paid. 

Talleyrand pronounced the offer too low, but 
disclaimed having spoken of the matter by au- 
thority. In reality Napoleon had, on the pre- 
ceding day, announced to two of his ministers 
his final resolution. The expedition to Santo 
Domingo had failed miserably; colonial enter- 
prises appeared to be no longer practicable; 
war with England was at hand; and it seemed 
wiser to sell colonies than go down with them 
in disaster. In this predicament Napoleon de- 
cided to sell to the United States not only New 
Orleans but the whole of Louisiana, and, only 
a few hours before the interview between Tal- 
leyrand and Livingston was held, had instructed 
Barbe Marbois, his Minister of Finance, to 
negotiate the sale. 

Monroe arrived in Paris on April 12. On the 
next day Marbois informed Livingston that 
Napoleon had authorized him to say that, if 
the Americans would give 100,000,000 francs 
and pay theii' claims, they might '^ take the 



EXPANSION 159 

whole country." Noting Livingston's surprise 
at the price, Marbois eventually suggested that 
the United States should pay to France the sum 
of 60,000,000 francs and assume the claims of 
its own citizens to the amount of 20,000,000 
more. Livingston declared that it was in vain 
to ask a thing so greatly beyond his country's 
means, but promised to consult with Monroe. 
The American plenipotentiaries were thus con- 
fronted with a momentous question concerning 
which in- its full extent their instructions did 
not authorize them to treat ; but, properly inter- 
preting the purposes of their government and 
the spirit of their countrymen, they promptly 
and boldly assumed the responsibility. They 
accepted Marbois 's terms, excessive as they at 
first seemed, and took the whole province. 
Speaking in a prophetic strain, Livingston, 
when he had affixed his name to the treaty of 
cession, exclaimed: '* We have lived long, but 
this is the noblest work of our lives. . . . To- 
day the United States take their place among 
the powers of the first rank. . . . The instru- 
ment we have signed will cause no tears to flow. 
It will prepare centuries of happiness for in- 
numerable generations of the human race." 
Time has verified Livingston 's prevision. The 



160 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

purchase of Louisiana lias contributed more 
than any other territorial acquisition to make 
the United States what it is today. 

Though the whole of Louisiana was ceded, 
its limits were undefined. The province was 
retroceded by Spain to France in 1800 '' with 
the same extent that it now has in the hands of 
Spain, and that it had when France possessed 
it." By the treaty of April 30, 1803, the terri- 
tory was ceded to the United States " in the 
same manner," but the boundaries had never 
been precisely determined. Livingston and 
Monroe assured their government that the ces- 
sion extended to the river Perdido, and there- 
fore embraced West Florida. This claim was 
not sanctioned by France, but Congress, acting 
upon Livingston and Monroe's assurance, au- 
thorized the President in his discretion to erect 
'' the bay and river Mobile " and the adjacent 
territory into a customs district. Spain 
strongly protested, and the execution of the 
measure was held in suspense. In the summer 
of 1810, however, a revolution took place in 
West Florida. Baton Eouge was seized; the 
independence of the province was declared; 
and an application was made for its admission 
into the Union. The President repulsed this 



EXPANSION 161 

application, but occupied the territory as far 
as the river Pearl, as part of the Louisiana 
purchase. The country lying between that 
stream and the Perdido was permitted still to 
i^emain in the possession of Spain. 

On the 3d of January, 1811, President Madi- 
son sent to Congress a secret message in which 
he recommended the expediency of authoriz- 
ing the Executive to take temporary posses- 
sion of any part of the Floridas, in pursuance 
of arrangements with the Spanish authorities ; 
or without such arrangements, in case those au- 
thorities should be subverted and there should 
be apprehension of the occupation of the ter- 
ritory by another foreign power. Acting on 
this message, Congress, in secret session, on 
the 11th of January, *^ taking into view the 
peculiar situation of Spain and her American 
provinces," and " the influence which the des- 
tiny of the territory adjoining the southern 
border of the United States may have upon 
their security, tranquillity and commerce," re- 
solved that the United States could not " with- 
out serious inquietude see any part of said ter- 
ritory pass into the hands of any foreign 
power," and that ^' a due regard to their own 
safety " compelled them '' to provide, under 
11 



X62 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

certain contingencies, for the temporary occu- 
pation of the said territory," the territory 
so occupied to be held " subject to future 
negotiation." 

As to West Florida, Congress had, as we 
have seen, already empowered the Executive 
to exercise acts of possession; but as East 
Florida unquestionably still belonged to Spain, 
it was necessary to confer upon the President 
special powers in regard to that province in 
order to insure the object expressed in the re- 
solution. Congress therefore authorized the 
President to take possession of and occupy all 
or any part of East Florida, '' in case an ar- 
rangement has been, or shall be, made with the 
local authority of the said territory, for de- 
livering up the possession of the same, or any 
part thereof, to the United States; or in the 
event of an attempt to occupy the said terri- 
tory, or any part thereof, by any foreign gov- 
ernment." For the purpose of occupying and 
holding the territory, the President was au- 
thorized to employ the army and navy of the 
United States ; and the sum of $100,000 was ap- 
propriated '' for defraying such expenses as 
the President may deem necessary for obtain- 
ing possession as aforesaid, and the security of 
the said territory." 



EXPANSION 163 

January 26, 1811, Monroe, as Secretary of 
State, instructed Gen. George Matthews and 
Col. John McKee, as commissioners for carry- 
ing the act of Congress into effect, to repair to 
East Florida with all possible expedition, keep- 
ing their mission secret ; and if they should find 
Governor Folk or the local authority existing 
there inclined to surrender the province in an 
amicable manner, they were to accept the abdi- 
cation in behalf of the United States, and if 
necessary agree to restore the country at a 
future period to the lawful sovereign. They 
were also authorized, if necessary, to assume 
the debts due by Spain to the inhabitants of the 
territory ; to guarantee titles to land ; to permit 
the Spanish civil functionaries to retain their 
offices ; and to advance a reasonable sum for the 
transportation of the Spanish troops. If no 
such arrangement could be made they were in- 
structed to keep on the alert, and on the first 
undoubted approach of a foreign power to take 
possession of the territory. In that event they 
were to exercise a sound discretion as to mak- 
mg promises, taking care to commit their gov- 
ernment no further than was necessary. A 
similar course was enjoined in regard to that 
part of "West Florida still held in the name of 
Spain, 



164 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

It does not appear that McKee acted under 
this commission; bnt Matthews accepted it, re- 
paired to the Florida frontier, and took up his 
residence at St. Marys. He found, however, 
that the governor and local authorities were 
loyal to Spain, and not inclined to deliver up 
the territory; nor was there any sign of an at- 
tempt on the part of any foreign power to seize 
it; and the general contentment of the inhabi- 
tants, arising from the agricultural prosperity 
of the country, was enhanced by the profits of 
the vastly increased trade which the United 
States non-importation act diverted to the 
neighboring province and of which Fernandina, 
on Amelia Island, was the chief entrepot. 
Nevertheless, there existed along the border a 
certain element, largely composed of persons 
who had emigrated from the neighboring 
States, which, although incompetent to effect 
a revolution without external aid, was willing 
to undertake a revolt if properly supported. 
This support Matthews promised; and on 
March 14, 1812, more than a year after his mis- 
sion began, a party of men, supplied with arms 
partly from the United States arsenal at Point 
Peter, assembled at Eoses Bluff, across the 
river from St. Marys, and raised the standard 



EXPANSION 165 

of revolt against the government of East 
Florida. On the 16th of March they attacked 
the town of Fernandina. Coincidently, sev- 
eral United States gunboats took a position 
opposite the town, and the Spanish command- 
ant, having been informed that they intended 
to assist the insurgents, surrendered to the lat- 
ter, who took possession of the place and raised 
the '' patriot flag." The next day General 
Matthews crossed the river with a detachment 
of the regular army and took formal possession 
of the town in the name of the United States, 
subject to the President's approval. Within 
a few days the insurgents, accompanied by a 
body of United States regulars and some volun- 
teers from Georgia, set out for St. Augustine. 
Their procedure was systematic. Marching a 
little in advance of the American forces, the 
insurgents would take possession of the coun- 
try and raise the '' patriot flag," and then, in 
the character of " the local authorities," sur- 
render the territory to General Matthews, who 
would receive possession in the name of the 
United States. In this way he received posses- 
sion of the country all the way to St. Augustine, 
to which place siege was laid in the latter part 
of March. 



IQQ ■ AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

The measures adopted by General Matthews 
for obtaining possession of Amelia Island and 
other parts of East Florida were disavowed by 
the United States, and his powers were re- 
voked. Governor Mitchell of Georgia was ap- 
pointed to succeed him, with instructions to 
withdraw the American troops and restore to 
the Spanish authorities the country thus taken 
from them. Monroe, referring to the employ- 
ment of American troops to dispossess the 
Spanish authorities by force, said : ' ' I forbear 
to dwell on the details of this transaction, be- 
cause it is too painful to recite them." At the 
same time Governor Mitchell was directed to 
obtain from the Spanish authorities " the most 
satisfactory assurance " with respect to the 
immunity of those inhabitants who had acted 
with General Matthews. This proved to be a 
troublesome subject of negotiation, and to- 
gether with certain other causes operated to 
postpone the final evacuation of the province 
till May 1813. The transaction thus briefly 
narrated was attended with lamentable results 
to the inhabitants of East Florida. 

During the "War of 1812 West Florida was 
the scene of hostilities between the British and 
the American forces, and in 1817 and 1818 it 



EXPANSION X67 

was the theatre of the famous Seminole War. 
Meanwhile, the government of the United 
States was endeavoring to obtain from Spain 
the relinquishment of her provinces. The ne- 
gotiations, which were conducted on the part of 
the United States by John Quincy Adams, were 
brought to a close by the treaty of February 
22, 1819, by which Spain ceded to the United 
States not only the Floridas, but also the Span- 
ish titles north of the forty-second parallel of 
'north latitude from the source of the Arkansas 
River to the Pacific Ocean. In return, the 
United States agreed to pay the claims of its 
citizens against Spain to an amount not ex- 
ceeding $5,000,000 and to indemnify the Span- 
ish inhabitants of the Floridas for injuries suf- 
fered at the hands of American forces, besides 
granting to Spanish commerce in the ceded ter- 
ritories, for the term of twelve years, excep- 
tional privileges. 

The claim of the United States to West 
Florida, as part of the Louisiana cession, must 
be admitted to have been extravagant ; but there 
is precise proof that France at least considered 
that the boundary of Louisiana on the south 
was the Rio Bravo and that the province there- 
fore embraced the territory called Texas. By 



168 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

the treaty of February 22, 1819, however, the 
territory lying between the Kio Bravo or Eio 
Grande del Norte and the Eiver Sabine, which 
had long been in dispute between France and 
Spain and after 1803 between Spain and the 
United States, was acknowledged to belong to 
Spain, and subsequently on the independence of 
Mexico it became a part of that country. Soon 
afterwards efforts began to be made to recover 
Texas either in whole or in part. Two such at- 
tempts were made during the presidency of 
John Quincy Adams in 1825 and 1827. The ef- 
fort was renewed by President Jackson in 1829 
and again in 1833. In August 1835 the Ameri- 
can minister in Mexico was directed to per- 
severe in the task, and also to offer half-a- 
million dollars for the Bay of San Francisco 
and certain adjacent territory as a resort for 
American vessels in the Pacific. On March 2, 
1836, the people of Texas through a convention 
of delegates declared their independence. In 
the following year the authorities of Texas 
made to President Van Buren an overture of 
cession, which he declined. The independence 
of Texas was, however, acknowledged not only 
by the United States but also by France and 
Great Britain, and treaties were made with 



EXPANSION 169 

Texas by all those powers. On April 12, 1844, 
a treaty of annexation was concluded at Wash- 
ington. This treaty having failed in the 
Senate, Congress by a joint resolution approved 
March 1, 1845, took action looking to the ad- 
mission of Texas into the Union as a State. 
The terms offered in the resolution of Congress 
were accepted by Texas ; and, by a joint resolu- 
tion of Congress, approved December 29, 1845, 
the admission was formally accomplished. 
Texas was, to use the phrase of the day, " re- 
annexed. ' ' 

In spite of the fact that more than nine years 
had elapsed since Texas had declared her in- 
dependence and begun to maintain it, and that 
treaty relations had been established by the re- 
public not only with the United States but also 
with the two principal powers of Europe, the 
Mexican government had advised the United 
States that the annexation would be re- 
garded by Mexico as a cause of war. Be- 
fore the annexation was completed the Mexi- 
can minister left Washington and diplomatic 
relations were suspended. President Polk sub- 
sequently sent John Slidell as minister to 
Mexico to restore diplomatic relations and ne- 
gotiate a settlement of all differences, which 



170 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

embraced not only questions growing out of 
the annexation of Texas, but also the unsatis- 
fied claims of citizens of the United States on 
account of damages suffered in Mexico. Slidell, 
after two successive governments had refused 
to receive him, returned to the United States. 
The Mexican government had already begun to 
collect its forces at Matamoras, near the mouth 
of the Rio Grande, which had by an act of the 
Texan Congress been designated as the bound- 
ary between Texas and Mexico. By the terms 
of the annexation, all questions of boundary 
that might arise with other governments were 
left to be adjusted by the United States. The 
Mexican government claimed all the territory 
between the Rio Grande and the River Nueces, 
and the massing of her forces was apparently 
intended to enforce this claim. By the act of 
Congress of December 31, 1845, creating the 
customs district of Texas, the town of Corpus 
Christi on the south of the Nueces was design- 
ated as one of five ports of delivery, Galveston 
being the only port of entry. In January 1846, 
General Taylor, who had under his command 
only 2,000 troops, was ordered to proceed to the 
north bank of the Rio Grande. He established 
himself at a point opposite Matamoras and pro- 



EXPANSION 171 

ceeded to fortify bis position. On April 12, 
General Ampudia, commanding the Mexican 
forces at Matamoras, demanded Taylor's with- 
drawal and his retirement to the north of the 
Nneces. Twelve days later (April 24) General 
Arista, who had succeeded Ampudia, notified 
Taylor, who had disregarded Ampudia 's de- 
mand, that hostilities were begun. On the same 
day two companies of American dragoons, con- 
sisting of 63 officers and men, were while re- 
connoitering killed or captured by Mexican 
troops who had crossed the river above Mata- 
moras. The war was indeed begun. General 
Taylor's official report of the attack upon his 
forces was received in Washington late in the 
afternoon on Saturday the 9th of May. On 
May 11, President Polk in a message to Con- 
gress stated that American blood had been shed 
on American soil and that war existed by act 
of Mexico. It is an unquestionable fact, dis- 
closed by Polk's diary, that, if the report of 
hostilities had not reached Washington on the 
9th of May, a message, recommending a declar- 
ation of war against Mexico, might have been 
sent to Congress on the 12th or soon after- 
wards. At a meeting of the cabinet on the 
morning of the 9th, all the members but one 



172 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

advised the President that such a message 
should be sent, and it was agreed that it should 
be prepared and submitted to the cabinet on the 
12th, together with the documents which should 
accompany it. The judgment of the President 
and his cabinet as to the nature and gravity of 
the situation was remarkably confirmed by the 
event. 

Congress with practical unanimity responded 
to the President's view that war existed by 
act of Mexico, and a law was promptly enacted 
so declaring. In reality, within the three days 
preceding Polk's message, there had been 
fought the battles of Palo Alto and Eesaca de 
la Palma in which the Mexican forces though 
superior in numbers were driven across the 
Rio Grande. By the Treaty of Guadalupe 
Hidalgo of February 2, 1848, by which the war 
was ended, the United States acquired Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico. The territory de- 
signated as New Mexico embraced the political 
divisions now known as Nevada, Utah, and 
Arizona, and parts of Wyoming, Colorado and 
New Mexico. In consideration of these ces- 
sions the United States paid to Mexico $15,- 
000,000 and assumed the payment of claims of 
American citizens against Mexico to an amount 



EXPANSION 173 

not exceeding $3,250,000. The acquisitions 
thus made were enLarged by the convention of 
December 30, 1853, commonly called the 
Gadsden treaty, by which Mexico for the sum 
of $10,000,000 released the United States from 
liability on account of certain stipulations of 
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgoand ceded the 
Mesilla valley. This cession, which is often 
called the Gadsden Purchase, was strongly de- 
sired by the United States not only for the pur- 
pose of establishing a safe frontier against the 
Indians but also for the purpose of obtaining 
a feasible route for a railway near the Gila 
River. 

No acquisition of territory by the United 
States has been the subject of so much honest 
but partisan misconception as that of the an- 
nexation of Texas and the acquisition of Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico. All shades of senti- 
ment have been represented in the contest, — 
fatalists, providentialists, optimists, and pessi- 
mists have contended with one another for vic- 
tory. By one school of writers, whose views 
have had great currency, the annexation has 
been denounced as the result of a plot of the 
slave power to extend its dominions, in spite 
of the fact that John C. Calhoun, who looked 



174 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

with dread npon the enhancement of national 
power which military activities were likely to 
bring about, was one of the few opponents in 
Congress of the Mexican War. In reality, no 
extension of American territory was ever more 
completely in conformity with the aspirations 
and habits of thought of the American people. 
But for the controversy concerning slavery, it 
may be believed that there would have been no 
appreciable opposition in the United States to 
the acquisition of Texas or of California and 
New Mexico, and that such local antagonism as 
might have existed to the disturbance of the 
balance of power in the Union would have been 
overwhelmed by the general demand for an ex- 
tension of boundaries so natural, and, except 
for the slavery question, in every respect so 
expedient. Certainly no acquisition was ever 
made in which the spirit of providentialism, 
which has been so influential in the extension 
of national boundaries, has been more clearly 
exemplified. Polk himself records that he. sus- 
pended the composition of his war message, 
which was prepared on Sunday, in order to at- 
tend church, and it is hardly probable that the 
fervor which characterizes its concluding sen- 
tences was diminished by his devotions. He 



EXPANSION 175 

was no hypocrite. His character is emerging 
from the mists of controversy as that of a 
sturdy American, devoted to his country, who 
had opinions of his own and maintained them 
with the confidence of sincere conviction. He 
instinctively regarded himself as promoting, 
rather than as transgressing, the designs of 
the Almighty in helping to enlarge the boun- 
daries of the United States, while to him and 
the world of his time the battle stories of the 
Old Testament were more real than the peace- 
ful counsels of the New. 

The annexation, or " reannexation, " of 
Texas had been earnestly advocated and was 
afterwards widely extolled as a partial fulfil- 
ment of the " manifest destiny " of the United 
States to embrace at least the entire continent 
of North America; and because some of those 
who used the phrase supported, or at any rate 
did not oppose, the extension of slavery, the 
doctrine of '' manifest destiny " was on the 
other hand denounced as a slaveholders' doc- 
trine. We of the present generations who have 
lately heard a statesman, on the verge of oc- 
cupying a position no less exalted and respon- 
sible than that of Speaker of the national House 
of Representatives, intimate, in a spirit of pure 



176 AMEEICAN DErELOFMENT 

benevolence, while the fate of a delicate negotia- 
tion for wider trade relations with the Dominion 
of Canada was hanging in the balance, that the 
absorption of that part of the British dominions 
would not seriously tax our capacity, but might 
even be considered an agreeable and stimulating 
digestive operation, can see things with a clearer 
vision/ Manifest Destiny is not indeed a 
slaveholders' doctrine, but is merely providen- 
tialism in practical operation. It has by no 
one been more beautifully or suggestively de- 
scribed than by John Jay, a man of devout 
mind, who was with some foundation thought to 
have neglected the interests of the slaveholding 

1 February 14, 1911, the Hon. Champ Clark, then a member 
and Speaker-elect of the House, in the course of a speech on 
the Canadian Eeciproeity Bill, said: " I am in favor of the 
reciprocity treaty to promote our trade relations. ... I am for 
it, because I hope to see the day when the American flag will 
float over every square foot of the British North American 
possessions clear to the North Pole. They are people of our 
blood. They speak our language. Their institutions are much 
like ours. They are trained in the difficult art of self-govern- 
ment. " He further declared that he had no doiibt that the 
measure would tend to bring Canada into the Union, and being 
asked whether he thought that this would tend to preserve 
peace with Great Britain, he replied: "Why, certainly it will. 
I do not have any doubt whatever that the day is not far dis- 
tant when Great Britain will joyfully see all her North Amer- 
ican possessions become a part of this Eepublic. That is the 
way things are tending now." (Congressional Eecord, vol. 46, 
part 3, pp. 2520-2521.) 



EXPANSION 177 

population of the United States in his treaty 
with Great Britain. Jay, in his first number 
of the Federalist, tells with what pleasure he 
had observed " that independent America was 
not composed of detached and distant terri- 
tories, but that one connected, fertile, wide- 
spreading country was the portion of our west- 
ern sons of liberty; tliat Providence had in a 
particular manner blessed it with a variety of 
soils and productions, and watered it with in- 
numerable streams, for the delight and accom- 
modation of its inhabitants "; that it had 
" navigable waters " to bind it together, and 
' ' the most noble rivers in the world, running at 
convenient distances ", to provide communica- 
tion and transportation; and that Providence 
had '' been pleased to give this one connected 
country ' ' to what, in spite of the combination 
of English and Irish, Dutch and Swedes, Span- 
ish and French, Pilgrims and Puritans, Round- 
heads and Cavaliers, Protestants, Catholics and 
Quakers, he could call '' one united people " — 
a people, he declared, '' descended from the 
same ancestors, speaking the same language, 
professing the same religion"! Is it surpris- 
ing that he finally exclaimed, '' This country 
and this people seem to have been made for 
12 



X78 AMERICAN DEVELOFMENT 

eacli other''? Is it more surprising that this 
same " united people " should regard another 
fertile, well watered, widespreading country; 
as equally made for it, if such country should 
happen to fall in its way'? All North America 
was indeed in a sense connected, fertile, wide- 
spreading and well watered. A great part of 
South America may he described as connected, 
fertile, widespreading and well watered. The 
same happy conditions might even be found in 
Europe, in Asia and in Africa. It may truly 
be confessed that the conception is applicable 
to all quarters of the habitable globe. 

Six months after the annexation of Texas and 
a month after the beginning of the Mexican 
"War, the long dispute as to the Oregon terri- 
tory was brought to a close. This territory 
was bounded, according to the claim of the 
United States, by the forty-second parallel of 
north latitude on the south; by the line of 
54° 40' on the north, and by the Eocky Moun- 
tains on the east. It embraced, roughly speak- 
ing, an area of 600,000 square miles. The claim 
of the United States was founded upon the dis- 
covery by Captain Eobert Gray of the Ameri- 
can Ship Cohmihia, in 1792, of the Eiver of the 
West, which he named, from his ship, the 



EXPANSION 179 

Columbia Eiver; the exploration of the main 
branch of that river by Lewis and Clark; the 
establishment of the fur-trading post of Astoria 
by John Jacob Astor in 1815, and its restora- 
tion to the United States under the Treaty of 
Ghent ; and finally the acquisition in 1819 of all 
the territorial rights of Spain on the Pacific 
Ocean above the 42° of north latitude. By the 
Democratic National Platform of 1844, the title 
of the United States to the whole of Oregon 
was declared to be clear and unquestionable; 
and this declaration was repeated by President 
Polk in his inaugural address in quotation 
marks. It was popularly interpreted to mean 
* ' Fifty-four-forty or light, ' ' and Polk believed, 
not without reason, that the people were willing 
to fight for it. But on June 15, 1846, the dis- 
pute was terminated by a nearly equal division 
of the territory along the forty-ninth parallel 
of north latitude, the boundary being deflected 
southerly from that line at the Pacific so as to 
leave to Great Britain the whole of Vancouver's 
Island. The acquisition of this territory has 
been described as the result of a policy of 
'' accretion " not colonization. This view was 
afterwards expounded by no less a Whig states- 
man than Edward Everett, who, as Secretary 



180 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

of State, defended the territorial acquisitions 
from Mexico and evidently looked to the even- 
tual absorption of Cuba by the United States. 
Vast regions, said Everett, which " had lan- 
guished for three centuries under the leaden 
sway of a stationary system," had come ''under 
the influences of an active civilization." Free- 
dom of speech and of the press, trial by jury, 
religious equality, and representative govern- 
ment had, he declared, " been carried into ex- 
tensive regions where they were unknown be- 
fore, ' ' while, by the acquisitions on the Pacific, 
the " great circuit of intelligence round the 
globe " was completed. It may indeed be af- 
firmed that the eloquence with which the ac- 
quisitive diplomacy had been reprobated was 
equalled only by the eloquence with which its 
beneficent results were afterwards set forth. 
Men of all parties, when their minds -were 
drawn away from the contemplation of slavery 
and from the controversies to which its con- 
tinued existence gave rise, could unite and with 
genuine enthusiasm sing the praises of expan- 
sion in the spirit of the lines — 

"So shall the nation's pioneer 
"Go joyful on his way, 



EXPANSION 181 

"To wed Penobscot's waters 

' ' To San Francisco 's Bay ; 

"To make the rugged places smooth, 

' ' To sow the vales with grain, 

"And bear, with Liberty and Law, 

"The Bible in his train. 

' * The mighty West shall bless the East, 

"And sea shall answer sea, 

"And mountain unto mountain call — 

' ' Praise God, for we are free ! ' ' 

By the treaty signed at Washington on 
March 30, 1867, the Russian Emperor, in con- 
sideration of the sum of $7,200,000, convej^ed 
to the United States all his *' territory and 
dominion " in America. We have called the 
territory Alaska. This transaction has been 
the subject of many strange conjectures. It 
has suggested that it was designed to reim- 
burse Russia for the expense of her ' ' friendly 
naval demonstration ' ' during the Civil War in 
the United States, — a suggestion which may 
be placed in the category of the fantastic. It 
has been stated on the supposed authority of 
Robert J. Walker that the Emperor Nicholas 
was ready to give Alaska to the United States 
during the Crimean AVar if the United States 
would, in spite of the treaty of 1846, re-assert 
its claim to the whole of Oregon. The terri- 



182 AMEEICAN DEVELOPMENT 

toiy was in reality of comparatively little 
value to Eussia, who had for years leased an 
important part of tlie southern coast to the 
Hudson's Bay Company. To the United States 
its potential value was obviously greater, while 
its acquisition was gratifying to the spirit of 
continental dominion which has always been so 
strongly manifested by the people of the United 
States. From the point of view, however, of 
communication and defense, the territory was 
as completely detached as if it had had no 
direct physical connection with the continent. 
The idea or mental conception of physical con- 
tinuity has caused this aspect of the subject 
to be overlooked. In reality, for purposes of 
communication and defense, the United States 
was obliged to rely wholly upon the sea; not 
only was the intervening territory British but 
it was not readily traversable. In this as- 
pect the situation of Alaska did not differ from 
that of a distant island or group of islands, 
while the most westerly of the Aleutian Islands, 
which form part of the cession, lies farther to 
the west of San Francisco than San Francisco 
lies to the west of New York. 

The acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands un- 
der the Joint resolution of Congress of July 



EXPANSION 183 

7, 1898, marked the logical consummation of 
the special relations that had long subsisted be- 
tween the United States and that group. As 
early as 1853 the United States, while William 
L. Marcy was Secretary of State, sought to 
annex the islands. Subsequently, annexation 
was put aside for reciprocity, but at length, on 
January 30, 1875, a treaty was concluded by 
which the islands were virtually placed under 
an American protectorate. This treaty was 
renewed in 1887, with an additional article con- 
ceding to the United States the right to estab- 
lish a naval station in the harbor of Pearl 
Kiver. February 14, 1893, a treaty of annexa- 
tion was signed at Washington, but on the 
change of administration was withdrawn from 
the Senate. Another treaty of annexation, 
signed June 16, 1897, was still pending before 
the Senate when the joint resolution was passed 
by which the acquisition of the islands was 
definitely accomplished. 

This transaction was consummated in the 
midst of the War with Spain. The Spanish 
islands in the West Indies, comprising all that 
remained to Spain of her once vast possessions 
in America, fall within the scope of the provi- 
dentialist principle of " manifest destiny;" but 



184 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

the Congress of the United States, in directing 
forcible intervention in the conflict between 
Spain and the Cuban insurgents, laid upon the 
people of the United States a self-denying or- 
dinance with reference to Cuba. The Spanish 
possessions in the Far East and particularly 
the Philippine Islands lay beyond the accus- 
tomed range of American political thought. It 
may be affirmed that when the war with Spain 
began there were comparatively few of the in- 
habitants of the United States who could tell 
where the Philippine Islands were situated, and 
that the number was not large to whom even 
the name suggested more than a dim and vague 
reminiscence of early lessons in geography. 
Something had been heard commercially of 
Manila hemp, but there were few outside the 
trade who knew where Manila was. 

The destruction of the Spanish Fleet in 
Manila Bay on the morning of the 1st of May, 
1898, created the supposition that Manila was 
a Spanish city and led to a general acquaint- 
ance with the fact that it was in the Philippine 
Islands. But it may be confidently asserted 
that up to that time the acquisition of the 
Philippines by the United States had not been 
suggested even as a possible contingency; nor, 



EXPANSION 185 

although Dewey's victory attracted attention to 
the islands, was it followed by any general or 
definite expression of a desire for their annexa- 
tion. An accident of war was destined to 
exert an important influence on the direction of 
public sentiment. Soon after the destruction 
of the Spanish fleet telegraphic communication 
with the islands was severed. For this reason 
the orders that were sent out from "Washington 
on August 12, on the signing of the peace pro- 
tocol of that date, for the suspension of hostili- 
ties were a week old when they reached the 
Philippines. Meanwhile, on August 13, Manila 
was captured by the American forces and on 
the following day a capitulation was signed. A 
peaceful occupation of the city under the pro- 
visions of the protocol would have excited little 
feeling. The report of its capture by force of 
arms with some casualities was received in the 
United States eight days after the signing of 
the protocol. The effect was visible and pro- 
nounced. It gave a decided impulse to annexa- 
tion sentiment. The question began to be popu- 
larly discussed as one not of taking the islands 
but of abandoning them. And the tendency to 
retain them was powerfully re-enforced by the 
growth of a missionary spirit which discerned 



185 AMEBIC AN DEVELOPMENT 

in the course of events a providential opportun- 
ity to promote the welfare of the natives, an 
opportunity the neglect of which, because of 
preconceived notions of national interests, 
would constitute a selfish and censurable abdi- 
cation of duty. 

Combined with this was the commercial 
spirit, which with its usual eagerness began to 
speak of the wealth of the islands, latent as well 
as available, as if it were all immediately con- 
vertible into cash, while nothing was placed on 
the opposite side of the ledger. Nevertheless, 
President McKinley in his instructions to the 
American Peace Commission of September 16, 
1898, went no further than to say that United 
States could not accept ' ' less than ' ' the Island 
of Luzon. During the following weeks, how- 
ever, much consideration was given to the sub- 
ject; President McKinley made a tour of the 
country, and on October 28 the American com- 
missioners were instructed that the President 
could see '' but one plain path of duty — the ac- 
ceptance of the archipelago." 

A proposal to this effect was made, and, after 
much negotiation, an ultimatum was presented 
by the American commissioners, embracing the 
cession of the entire archipelago to the United 



EXPANSION 187 

States and tlie payment to Spain of the sum of 
$20,000,000. The American commissioners, de- 
claring it to be " the policy of the United 
States to maintain in the Philippines an open 
door to the world's commerce," further offered 
to concede to Spanish ships and merchandise, 
for a term of years, admission to the ports of 
the islands on the same terms as American 
ships and merchandise. They also proposed a 
mutual relinquishment of claims that had arisen 
since the beginning of the insurrection in Cuba 
in 1895. On this basis there was signed at Paris 
on December 10, 1898, a treaty of peace, under 
which the United States became the proprietor 
of all the Spanish islands in the West Indies 
except Cuba, and of the Philippine Islands and 
Guam in the East Indies. 

While the acquisition of the Philippines was 
wholly unpremeditated, can it after all be said 
to have disclosed symptoms or tendencies with 
which the entire previous conduct of the United 
States was at variance? What is to be said of 
the case of Samoa? American traders early 
carried their operations into the Far East, and 
the interests which they established there were 
larger than is generally supposed. The part 
played by the United States in the opening of 



188 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

Japan is so well known that it would be super- 
fluous here to narrate it. Still, it did not in- 
volve the exercise of political control; but this 
cannot be said of the course of the United States 
with reference to the Samoan Islands. Al- 
though the United States was represented by a 
commercial agent at Apia at least as early as 
1853, the affairs of the islands attracted little 
attention till 1872, when the great chief of the 
bay of Pago-Pago, in the island of Tutuila, with 
a view to obtain the protection of the United 
States, concluded with Commander Meade, of 
the U. S. S. Narragansett, an agreement under 
which the government was to have the exclusive 
privilege of establishing in that harbor a naval 
station. This agreement, although it was com- 
municated to the Senate, was not acted upon; 
but on January 16, 1878, a treaty was con- 
cluded at Washington, by which the privileges 
previously sought to be conveyed to the United 
States were confirmed, and by which it was pro- 
vided that, if differences should arise between 
the Samoan government and any other govern- 
ment in amity with the United States, the latter 
would ''employ its good offices for the purpose 
of adjusting those differences upon a satisfac- 
tory and solid foundation." It was under this 



EXPANSION 189 

clause, when conditions had been disturbed in 
the islands, that the conference, which was held 
in Washington in June and July, 1887, between 
Mr, BsLjard, as Secretary of State, and the 
British and German ministers, on Samoan af- 
fairs, was brought about. The conference, no 
agreement having been reached, was adjourned 
till the autumn. Germany intervened in the 
islands, and became involved in hostilities with 
a part of the native population. The American 
naval forces in the islands were increased; 
Congress appropriated half-a-million dollars 
for the protection of American interests; and 
the friendly relations between the United 
States and Germany had become seriously 
strained and seemed to be in danger of rupture 
when, on the invitation of Prince Bismarck, the 
conference was resumed at Berlin. It resulted 
in the treaty of June 14, 1889, by which the 
islands were placed under the joint protection 
and administration of the three powers. The 
cumbersome, complicated and inappropriate tri- 
partite government thus established broke down 
of its own weight; and at length, by a treaty 
between the three powers, concluded December 
2, 1899, Tutuila and the adjacent islands, east 
of longitude 171° west of Greenwich, passed 



190 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

under the jurisdiction of tlie United States, 
where they still remain, while Upolu and Savaii 
and other islands west of that meridian were 
left to Germany. The significance of the Samoan 
incident lies, however, not in the mere division 
of territory, but in the disposition shown by 
the United States, long before the acquisition 
of the Philippines, to go to any length in as- 
serting a claim to take part in the determina- 
tion of the fate of a group of islands, thousands 
of miles away, in which American commercial 
interests were so slight as to be scarcely ap- 
preciable. 

Besides the annexations already described, 
the United States has acquired or assumed 
jurisdiction over many islands in various parts 
of the world. In 1850, the cession was obtained 
from Great Britain of Horse-Shoe Eeef , in Lake 
Erie, for the purposes of a lighthouse. In 
1867, Brooks or Midway Islands, lying 1100 
miles west of Honolulu, were formally occupied 
by the commander of the U. S. S. Laclcatvanna. 
In like manner the atoll called Wake Island, 
lying in latitude 19° 17' 50" north and longitude 
166° 31' east, was taken possession of in 1899 
by the commander of the U. S. S. Bennington. 
But the greatest extension of jurisdiction over 



EXPANSION 191 

detached islands or groups of islands has taken 
place by a process of unconscious occupation 
which was very active during two decades of 
the past century. The discovery of Peruvian 
guano brought to the exhausted energies of the 
worn-out lands of the Eastern States a power 
of resurrection. In order to encourage and re- 
ward the search for guano in other quarters. 
Congress, by the Act of August 18, 1856, com- 
monly called the Guano Islands Act, provided 
that, whenever any citizen of the United States 
should discover a deposit of guano on any 
island, rock, or key, not within the lawful juris- 
diction or occupied by the citizens of any other 
government, and should peaceably occupy it, 
the President might, on the performance by the 
discoverer of certain conditions, treat it as 
appertaining to the United States ; but the gov- 
ernment is not obliged to retain possession after 
the guano shall have been removed. Under this 
statute about seventy islands, lying in various 
parts of the Atlantic and the Pacific, are still 
considered as belonging to the United States.* 
An attempt was made by the United States in 

1 A list of these islands, with indications of their latitude 
and longitude, is given in Moore 's Digest of International Law, 
I, 567 et seq. 



192 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

1856 to obtain from New Granada the cession 
of jSve islands in tlie bay of Panama, with a 
view to protect the transit across the Isthmus. 
This attempt was unsuccessful. By the con- 
vention with the Eepublic of Panama, Novem- 
ber 18, 1903, the United States acquired in per- 
petuity the use, occupation, and control of a 
zone ten miles wide on the Isthmus of Panama, 
and certain adjacent islands, for the purposes 
of an interoceanic canal. Within these l^jids 
and the adjacent waters the United States is 
declared to possess '' all the rights, power, and 
authority " which it would have if it were the 
sovereign of the territory within which the 
lands and waters lie. These concessions were 
obtained from the Eepublic of Panama, to 
which compensation was made for them. 

The acquisitions actually accomplished do not 
comprise the entire sum of the activities of the 
United States in the direction of territorial ex- 
pansion. As late as 1870 the annexation of 
Canada, to which the aArticles of Confederation 
looked, was the subject of informal discussions 
between British and American diplomatists. 
In 1848 Spain summarily repulsed an offer of 
$100,000,000 for Cuba. More than twenty years 
later, during the Ten Years' War, an unsuc- 



EXPANSION 193 

cessful attempt was made to induce Spain to 
relinquish the island either by ceding it to the 
United States or by granting it independence 
under the latter 's guarantee. Not long before, 
the Spanish government refused to cede the 
islands of Culebra and Culebrita to the United 
States as a naval station; they eventually 
passed to the United States by the peace of 
1898. In 1848 an offer of the sovereignty of 
Yucatan was favorably received by President 
Polk, but the occasion for its consideration soon 
passed away. In 1854-1855 the United States 
sought to obtain a coaling station in Samana 
Bay; in 1866 a cession or lease of the peninsula 
of Samana was sought as a naval station. In 
1868 the President of the Dominican Republic 
requested the United States immediately to take 
the country under its protection and to occupy 
Samana Bay and other strategic points as a 
preliminary to annexation. President Johnson 
in his annual message of December 9, 1868, Mr. 
Seward being Secretary of State, advocated 
the acquisition of '' the several adjacent con- 
tinental and insular communities as speedily as 
it may be done peacefully, lawfully, and with- 
out any violation of national justice, faith, or 
honor," and declared that, while foreign pos- 
13 



X94 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

session or control of them had " hindered the 
growth and impaired the influence of the United 
States," " chronic revolution and anarchy 
would be equally injurious." A joint resolu- 
tion was introduced in the House of Eepresen- 
tatives for the annexation of the Dominican 
Eepublic. An agent from Santo Domingo was 
then in Washington awaiting action. The pro- 
ject was warmly espoused by President Grant, 
and on November 29, 1869, two treaties were 
concluded, one for the annexation of the Domin- 
ican Eepublic and the other for the lease of 
Samana Bay. Both instruments were communi- 
cated to the Senate on Januarj^ 10, 1870. They 
failed to receive that body's approval, special 
and temporary causes contributing to the result. 
In his last annual message to Congress, in 
1876, President Grant recurred to the subject, 
reaffirming his belief in the wisdom of the policy 
that he had proposed. In the plan to obtain the 
cession of islands in the West Indies, the Dan- 
ish possessions were not overlooked. A con- 
vention for the cession of St. Thomas and St. 
John for $7,500,000, leaving Santa Cruz to Den- 
mark, was signed at Copenhagen on October 24, 
1867. The Senate of the United States, per- 
haps not uninfluenced by an earthquake and 



EXPANSION 195 

tidal wave in the islands, failed to approve the 
treaty. January 24, 1902, a convention was 
signed at Washington for the cession of St. 
Thomas, St. John, and Santa Cruz, with the 
adjacent islands and rocks, all for $5,000,000. 
It was approved by the Senate. It was also 
approved by the lower house of the Danish 
Rigsdag, but failed in the upper house by an 
even division. The Mole St. Nicolas, in Haiti, 
was leased by the United States during the 
Civil War as a naval station, but the Haitian 
government in 1891 declined to let the harbor 
again for a similar purpose. 

In spite of the process of continuous expan- 
sion, which the survey of the history of the 
United States discloses, there can be no doubt 
that there exists among the American people 
a prevalent belief that they are characterized 
above all things by freedom from territorial 
ambitions and a peculiarly peace-loving disposi- 
tion. And yet, what is there in the history or 
antecedents of the American people to justify 
the presupposition that they are not only 
unaggressive but that they shrink from con- 
flict and are perversely and incorrigibly 
peaceful? Is it found in the fact that they 
have conquered and subdued a continent? 



X96 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

Is it derived from the fact that the terri- 
tory which they now hold, and which has 
been acquired largely as the result of war, 
is five times as great as that of the imperial 
domain with which they began their national 
career? Is it inferred from the circumstance 
that, since they forcibily established their inde- 
pendence, by an armed conflict of nearly eight 
years, they have waged four foreign wars, three 
general and one limited, and the greatest civil 
war in history? Have we forgotten the clamor 
for intervention, which is only another name for 
war, between Spain and Cuba, in 1898? Have 
we ceased to recall the cry " Remember the 
Maine," the denunciations of the system of con- 
centration, and the harsh criticisms and 
rough impugnments of the conduct of a peace- 
loving President, when, after stemming for a 
year the rising tide of popular feeling, he de- 
layed for a few days the submission of the ques- 
tion of war to Congress, in order that Ameri- 
cans might have an opportunity to leave Cuba? 
The impression which more or less prevails 
in every nation that it desires peace more than 
other nations do can be regarded only as an- 
other example of that tendency to self-delusion 
which is worldwide in its operation and is one 



EXPANSION 197 

of the commonest manifestations of everyday 
life. Not long ago I had the pleasure of listen- 
ing to an eminent Hungarian statesman, who 
made eloquent addresses in various parts of the 
United States in favor of peace, and who ap- 
peared to be specially confident of just two 
things, and these were the peaceful disposition 
of his own people and the peaceful disposition 
of the people of the United States. As I lis- 
tened to these gratifying assurances, I could 
not help recalling how, scarcely two years be- 
fore, 1 had witnessed at rather close range the 
impressive and unmistakable manifestation by 
the speaker's own people, by articles in the 
press, by speeches, by the liberal voting of mili- 
tary credits and the marshaling of warlike 
agencies, of a lively disposition to administer 
an effective and perhaps absorptive rebuke to 
the neighboring kingdom of Servia, which, ap- 
parently fearing that its own independence was 
menaced, vigorously protested against the un- 
expected annexation of Bosnia and Herzego- 
vina by the Imperial-Royal Government of 
Austria-Hungary. Nor did the speaker fail to 
draw a comparison between Prussia, armed to 
the teeth and therefore presumably panting for 
war, and the United States, unarmed and there- 



198 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

fore presumably panting for peace, in spite of 
the fact that since the close of the Napoleonic 
wars, when Prussia again became master of 
her own destinies, her wars have scarcely ex- 
ceeded in number those of the United States, 
even excluding from the computation the lat- 
ter 's Indian wars. To say that, after making 
the same exclusion, the years spent by Prussia, 
during the same period, in war, stand to those 
similarly spent by the United States hardly in 
the proportion of one to two, would be unfair, 
since Prussia's preparedness has enabled her 
to make her wars short. 

It is often loosely asserted and probably is gen- 
erally believed, not only that the United States 
is the foremost advocate, but also that it has al- 
ways been the invariable practical exponent, of 
the principle of international arbitration; and 
in proof of this assertion, the large number of 
cases to which the United States has been a 
party is cited. In reasoning thus, two facts are 
overlooked. One is that in every case there 
have been two parties, and that Great Britain, 
who is so often spoken of as a warlike power, 
has been a party to many of them, and has her- 
self had as many arbitrations as the United 
States, if not more. The second is that the 



EXPANSION 199 

United States has not always agreed to the 
arbitral settlement of its own disputes. Even 
apart from disputes which have, like those re- 
lated to the Monroe Doctrine, involved ques- 
tions of national policy, the United States has 
not always accepted arbitration as a mode of 
settlement. '* Six times," declared George 
Bancroft, as agent of the United States, in the 
case of the San Juan Water Boundary, " the 
United States had received the offer of arbitra- 
tion on their northwestern boundary, and six 
times had refused to refer a point where the 
importance was so great, and the right so 
clear." And it was only when Great Britain 
consented, in 1872, to a qualified or restricted 
submission of the point in dispute, that the 
United States agreed to refer it to the German 
Emperor. The British offers between 1854 
and 1858 to arbitrate the differences as to the 
meaning of certain clauses of the Clayton- 
Bulwer treaty were firmly declined. The pro- 
posal of Great Britain for the submission of 
the Bering Sea dispute to arbitration was made 
long before it was accepted. We refused to 
arbitrate the case of the '' Maine " in any of its 
aspects, both before and after the war. Even 
after the demand upon Great Britain in 1895 



200 AMEBICAN DEVELOPMENT 

for the unrestricted submission to arbitration 
of the Venezuelan boundary question, the Onley- 
Pauncefote treaty of January 1897, which was 
intended to carry arbitration between the 
United States and Great Britain to what were 
conceived to be the widest practicable limits, 
provided for the submission of territorial ques- 
tions to a tribunal which was not in a proper 
sense arbitral, but which was to be so organ- 
ized that it could not render a decision, unless 
one or more of the members appointed by one 
party should decide in favor of the other. It 
was only to such a tribunal that the United 
States consented to submit the Alaskan bound- 
ary question. Fortunately, Lord Alverstone, 
Chief-Justice of England, rose to the full 
measure of his opportunity, and enabled the 
tribunal to render a decision. We declined the 
request of Colombia for the arbitration of the 
controversy as to the Republic of Panama and 
the Canal Zone. It is needless to extend the 
enumeration. 

It is, in reality, a common error to confound 
what is called militarism, referring to the 
maintenance of large standing armies by con- 
scription, with the existence of a militant spirit, 
and to assume that the latter is produced by 



EXPANSION 201 

the former. Among intelligent and candid 
men, one can scarcely run the risk of being un- 
derstood to advocate great armaments for their 
own sake, who affirms that the connection is at 
least greatly exaggerated. A sense of super- 
iority, or of superior strength, military or 
otherwise, no doubt may induce a government 
more readily to assume an aggressive position, 
and may tend to develop a certain brusqueness 
or even arrogance of manner. We may also 
concede that it would be an advantage to the 
world, as well as a beneficent relief to particu- 
lar countries, if there should be brought about 
such a limitation of armaments as would re- 
sult in a substantial abatement of military pre- 
parations. But, admitting all this to be so, it 
nevertheless remains true that the nations of 
Europe, with large military establishments, are 
by no means so warlike or so intent upon war 
as is habitually asserted or assumed by those 
who denounce their military system. The 
subject has another side. It is quite possible 
that an occasional military parade, or a few 
weeks spent in the summer at a seaside resort 
for drill and social diversion, may create illu- 
sions with regard to war and encourage a mili- 
tary spirit; but such is not the life of the 



202 AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT 

conscript. The monotonous and self-denying 
routine of the barracks, the daily drills and 
marches, the performance of the severe and 
exacting duties of the camp and the field, and 
the discharge of all the functions of military 
life except that of actual battle, do not tend to 
create the illusion that war is a dress parade 
or a pastime. On the contrary, the conscript 
learns that, quite apart from the chances of 
death, war is a serious and onerous business. 
Nor are war and its chances and hardships im- 
pressed upon him alone. The dread realities 
are brought to the consciousness of every family 
in the land, so that the entire population is 
made to feel that, if conflict comes, every home 
must offer its sacrifice and make its contribu- 
tion. The great standing armies of Europe to- 
day are not the hireling forces by which, in 
former times, absolute rulers sought to accom- 
plish their ambitious purposes. They are the 
people themselves, drawn from and represent- 
ing the masses, and are for the most part cre- 
ated and maintained in the belief that, while the 
system has a disciplinary and educational 
value, its object is essentially defensive. 

It is important that the truth with regard to 
this subject should be candidly stated and cor- 



EXPANSION 203 

rectly apprehended, not only in order that mis- 
taken and injurious criticism of others may be 
avoided, but also in order that the human pro- 
pensity towards self-assumption of superior 
virtue may not be falsely encouraged. Ques- 
tions of war and of peace depend, and will 
continue to depend, not so much upon the size 
of military establishments as upon the culti- 
vation of the spirit and habit of justice, of self- 
control, of reciprocal recognition of rights and 
of forbearance. If these things be not prac- 
ticed ; if impatience takes the place of delibera- 
tion; if insistent and one-sided demands are 
substituted for measures of accommodation; if 
troubled situations are permitted to furnish the 
occasion for exceptional exactions; if differ- 
ences in race and in national traits and cus- 
toms are made to serve as the basis of un- 
friendly criticism, railing accusations and vio- 
lent suspicions — then all plans for the preserva- 
tion of peace will prove to be as so much waste 
paper. Outside the state, just as within the 
state, peace will be permanently preserved only 
by carrying into our dealings one with an- 
other the sentiment of fraternity and the spirit 
of conciliation. 



INDEX 

Abolitionists, 101; effects of agitation, 101-103. 

Adams, John, views as to confiscated debts, 23; minister to 

England, 26. 
Adams, John Quincy, formulation of Monroe Doctrine, 138; 

Florida treaty, 167, 179; Texas, 167, 168. 
Alaska, acquisition of, 181. 
Alliance with France, 19. 
Amendments to U. S. Constitution, first ten, 40-41; thirteenth, 

129 ; fourteenth, 58, 132 ; fifteenth, 133. 
American people, characteristics, 12-13, 41-42, 195; jealousy of 

authority, 47 ; individualism, 47 ; democracy, 47. 
American Eevolution, 14; democratic movement, 48, 70. 
Arbitration, International, 198-200. 
Aristocracy, decline, 48. 
Army, power to raise, 34. 
Articles of Confederation, 19 ; tendency towards separatism, 25- 

27; non-national character of government under, 29-32; 

provision for incorporation of Canada, 151. 
Astor, John Jacob, fur-trading post at Astoria, 179. 
Austria-Hungary, Hungarian revolution, 86; annexation of 

Bosnia and Herzegovina, 197. 

Baden, right of legation, 45. 

Balance of power, introduction of principle in slavery contro- 
versies, 105. 

Bancroft, George, minister to Baden, 45; naturalization trea- 
ties, 90. 

Bank, power to incorporate, 67. 

Bankruptcies, laws concerning, 34. 

Barbe Marbois, and Louisiana cession, 158. 

Bayard, T. F., Secretary of State, action in Samoa, 189. 

Beaumarchais, diplomatic activities, 17. 

205 



206 INDEX 

Bermuda Islands, 150. 

Bills of rights, 72; first ten Amendments, 41. 

Bismarck, on German constitution, 45; Samoa, 189. 

Black, J. S., on State coercion, 114. 

Blaekstone, Natural law and validity of legislation, 80. 

Blockade of Southern ports, 119, 120. 

Bosnia, annexation by Austria-Hungary, 197. 

Boundaries, United States, 21-22; State, 31. 

Brooks Islands, acquisition of, 190. 

Buchanan, James, doctrine of expatriation, 89-90; attitude aa 

President on secession, 108, 110-117. 
Burgoyne, capture of, 19. 

Calhoun, change of attitude, 106. 

California, acquisition of, 172, 173-175. 

Campbell, James, independence of Greece, 85. 

Canada, proposed acquisition of, 151, 175-176, 192. 

Canal, Interoceanie. See Interoceanic canal. 

Canal Zone, acquisition of, 192, 200. 

Cas3, GeL., on State coercion, 115. 

Causative facts, 5, 11, 12. 

Centralization, tendency towards, in United States, 43, 45-46, 

135, 136; in Switzerland, 43; in Germany, 45. 
Chicago Strike, 136. 
Citizenship, in U. S., 25, 30, 58, 59, 132; in Switzerland, 42; 

in Germany, 44. 
Civil Eights Act, 131, 134. 

Clark, Champ, on annexation of Canada, 175-176. 
Clayton, John M., Clayton-Bulwer treaty, 144. 
Cleveland, President, action in Chicago Strike, 136-137; ease of 

Venezuelan boundary, 139, 141. 
Colonial charters, aristocratic character, 48. 
Colonial system, 13 ; emancipation from, 85. 
Commerce, centralizing influences, 43, 45-46, 135, 136. 
Commerce, power of Congress over, 33, 67. 
Commercial restrictions, 13. 
Committees of Correspondence, 14. 
Committee of Foreign Affairs, 20. 
Common Law, 58-66. 
Common Sense, Paine 's, 15. 



INDEX 207 

ooncord, Battle of, 14. 

Confederation. See Articles of Confederation. 

Confiscation of debts, 23, 26, 27, 40. 

Confiscation Acts, 125. 

Congress, Continental. See Continental Congress. 

Congress, U. S., power over commerce, 33, 67 ; over territories, 
39; over rules of decision, 56-57; meeting and adjourn- 
ment, 37; extra session, of 1861, 119; Confiscation Acts, 
125; suspension of writ of habeas corpus, 126; Recon- 
struction Acts, 131-133. 

Connecticut, suffrage in, 73. 

Conscription, 200-203. 

Constitution, German Empire, 44-46. 

Constitution, Swiss, 42-44. 

Constitution, U. S., 27; national union, 28, 32-40; federalistic 
rather than democratic, 40-41, 54-55; supremacy over legis- 
lation, 80; provisions as to slavery, 98, 104-105; attitude 
of Abolitionists, 101 ; absence of State-coercive provision, 
115; departures from during Civil War, 126; Thirteenth 
Amendment, 129; Fourteenth Amendment, 58, 132; Fif- 
teenth Amendment, 133; expansion of powers, 143-146. 

Constitutions, State, subordinate character, 39-40; supremacy 
over local legislation, 80. 

Continental Congress, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20; powers as to war and 
peace, 24; looked to absorption of British possessions in 
North America, 150. 

Contract, Social. See Social Contract. 

Contracts, impairment of, 68-69. 

Copyrights, 34. 

Corporations, acts of incorporation, 68-69. 

Cotton-gin, and slavery, 98. 

Council of States, Switzerland, 42-43. 

Counterfeiting, punishment, 34. 

Courts, invalidation of legislative acts, 80; declare Missouri 
Compromise unconstitutional, 17 ; prevented from decid- 
ing upon constitutionality of Reconstruction Acts, 132. 

Courts, State, popular election of judges, 76-82; "recall," 82. 

Courts, U. S., establishment of, 34; appointment of judges, 37; 
jurisdiction, 38, 56; question as to common-law jurisdic- 
tion, 58-66. 



208 INDEX 

Criries, jurisdiction of, 59-66. 
Cuba, attempted acquisition, 192-193. 
Culebra and Culebrita, acquisition, 193. 

Danish Islands, attempts to acquire, 194-195. 

Dartmouth College Case, 68-69. 

Debts, Payment of, to British subjects, 22-24, 26, 27, 40. 

Declaration of Independence, 16; permeated with theory of 
natural rights, 52; fundamental importance, historically, 
53-54; embodied in State constitutions, 71; doctrine of ex- 
patriation, 89. 

Delaware, Suffrage in, 73 ; qualifications for office, 75-76. 

Democracy, 47-95; conditions and progress, 47; doctrine of 
natural rights, 49, 71-72; Declaration of Independence, 52; 
republican forms, 54; popular tide, 55; States' Eights, 56; 
Judiciary Act, 57; questions of common-law jurisdiction, 
58; conservatism of Supreme Court, 66; popular methods 
* in election of President, 70; popular revolution in States, 
71 ; extension of suffrage, 72-75 ; removal of restrictions on 
holding office, 75-76; popular election of judges, 76; "re- 
call," 82; common school system, 84; conduct of foreign 
affairs, 84-95; sympathy with self-government, 85; revo- 
lutions in South America, 85; independence of Greece, 85; 
■opposition to Holy Alliance, 86; overthrow of monarchy in 
France, 86; Kossuth and Hungarian revolution, 86-88; 
diplomatic dress, 88; doctrine of expatriation, 90; nation- 
alism, 90-91; War of 1812, 92; Monroe Doctrine, 92; Mex- 
ican War, 93-94 ; Nationalism, 94-95, 126-128. 

Democratic Party, origin and progress, 76. 

Department of Foreign Affairs, 20, 21. 

Dewey, Admiral, destruction of Spanish fleet, 185. 

Dickinson, John, advocates a constitution, 70. 

Diplomatic Dress, 88. 

Douglas, Stephen A., debate with Lincoln, 94. 

Dred Scott Case, 28, 59, 107. 

Dress, Diplomatic. See Diplomatic Dress. 

East Florida, 162, 163-166, 167. 
Election of judges, 76-82, 
Elective franchise. See Suffrage. 



INDEX 209 

Emancipation, 129; societies, 100. 

Europe, political and commercial interests, 20; examples of 
federal union, 42-46; military system, 200-203. 

Everett, Edward, lauds acquisitive diplomacy, 179-180. 

Executive power, Articles of Confederation, 31; Constitution 
of United States, 36; in Switzerland, 42. 

Expansion, 147; early contests, 149; proposed absorption of 
British North America, 150 ; Articles of Confederation and 
Canada, 151; treaty of peace, 151; acquisition of Louisi- 
ana, 152; the Floridas, 160-167, 179; Texas, 167-172; 
California and New Mexico, 172; Gadsden purchase, 173; 
Slavery question, 173; Manifest Destiny, 175-178; the 
Oregon territory, 178; Alaska, 181; Hawaii, 182; Spanish 
West Indies, Philippines, Guam, 183-187, 193; islands in 
Samoa, 187-190; Horse-shoe Eeef, 190; Brooks or Midway 
Islands, 190; Guano Islands, 191; Canal Zone, 192; at- 
tempted acquisitions, 192-195; popular suppositions, 195- 
196. 

Expatriation, 89-91. 

Family Compact, 17. 

Fatalists, 9, 10. 

Fathers, The, wisdom and work, 28-29; alleged inconsisten- 
cies, 54. 

Federal Assembly, Swiss, 42, 43. 

Federal Council, Swiss, 42. 

Federal Unions, Germany and Switzerland, 42-46. 

Federalism, 1-46 ; tendency towards relaxed, 25 ; high tide, 47. 

Federalist Party, decline, 69-70. 

Fifteenth Amendment, 133. 

Fifty-four-forty or fight, 179. 

Fisheries, Northeastern, 22. 

Floridas, acquisition, 160-167. 

Foreign Affairs, 16, 17, 18, 20; revolutions in South America, 
85; independence of Greece, 85; opposition to Holy Alli- 
ance, 86 ; revolutions in France, 86 ; Hungary and Kossuth, 
86-88; diplomatic dress, 88; doctrine of expatriation, 90; 
nationalism, 90-91; Monroe Doctrine, 92; influence of 
slavery, 93; Mexican war, 93-94; development of imperial- 
istic tendencies, 137-146; policy of expansion, 147-204. 

14 



210 INDEX 

See Committee of Foreign Affairs and Department of For- 
eign Affairs. 

Foreign intercourse, conduct of, 37. 

Fort Sumter, firing on, 118. 

Fourteenth Amendment, 58, 132. 

France, and American Eevolution, 17, 19; treaty of alliance, 
150. 

Franchise, Elective. See Suffrage. 

Franklin, comments on Continental Congress, 18; on confisca- 
tion of debts, 23. 

Freedmen, invested with the elective franchise, 131, 133. 

Freedom, Political, 13. 

Fugitives from justice, 39. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, 101. 

George III, 14, 36. 

Georgia, suffrage in, 73 ; popular election of .i^^g^s, 77. 

Germany, federal union, 42, 44-46; naturalization treaties, 90; 

nationalism, 91 ; Samoan Islands, 189. 
Gladstone, encomium on Constitution, 27. 
Gouverneur, Mrs. Reminiscences, 85-86. 
Grant, President, attempt to annex Santo Domingo, 194. 
Great Britain, treaty of peace with, 21. 
Greece, independence, 85. 
Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 172. 
Guam, acquisition of, 183-187. 
Guano Islands, 191. 

Habeas Corpus, suspension of, 121-124, 

Haiti, independence, 92; lease of Mole St. Nicolas, 195. 

Hawaii, annexation, 182. 

Henry, Patrick, national sentiments, 27. 

Henfield, Case of, 61. 

Herzegovina, annexation by Austria-Hungary, 197. 

His3, Elijah, unratified treaty with Nicaragua, 143. 

Historian, functions, 5, 10, 11, 12. 

History, as popularly conceived, 9. 

Holy Alliance, failure of plans, 90. 

Horse-Shoe Eeef, acquisition, 190. 

Howe, Senator, applauds disregard of laws, 125. 



INDEX 211 

Hudson and Goodwin, Case of, 59, 65. 

Hungarian revolution, excitement in United States, 86-88. See 
Austria-Hungary. 

Imperialism, 96; democratic progress and slavery, 9G-101; abo- 
litionism, 101-105; principle of balance of power, 105-107; 
Dred Scott Case, and invalidation of Missouri Compromise, 
107 ; election of Lincoln as President, 108 ; secession move- 
ment, 108; defects in federal legislation, 109-110; Bu- 
chanan's ineffectual appeals to Congress, 110-117; inaugu- 
ration of Lincoln, 117; firing on Fort Sumter, 117-118; 
call for troops, 118; proclamation of blockade, 119; sus- 
pension of habeas corpus, 121; virtual dictatorship, 124; 
demand for preservation of Union, 126-128; Congressional 
rejection of policy of restoration of Southern States, 129- 
131; military reconstruction, 131-132; adoption of Four- 
teenth and Fifteenth Amendments, 132-133; permanent 
effects of assumptions of power, 134; centralizing influ- 
ences of commerce, 135 ; Chicago Strike, 136 ; developments 
of Monroe Doctrine, 137-146, 

Indian tribes, regulation of commerce with, 33. 

Independence, Declaration of. See Declaration of Independence. 

Individualism, growth, 47, 48-49; non-sectional, 105. 

Insurrection, suppression, 34. 

Interoceanic canal, development of idea of American control, 
143. 

Interstate Commerce Act, 135. 

' ' Irrepressible Conflict, ' ' 107. 

Italy, nationalism, 91. 

Jackson, Andrew, nationalism and democracy, 95. 

Jacobi, A., 91. 

Jay, John, views as to confiscated debts, 23; on federal juris- 
diction of crimes, 62; Manifest Destiny, 176-178. 

Jefferson, Thomas, advocates a constitution, 70; reprobation of 
slavery, 98 ; on importance of Louisiana, 154-155. 

Johnson, Andrew, elected Vice-President, 128 ; succeeds Lincoln 
as President, 129; policy of restoration, 129-130; recom- 
mends acquisition of "West India islands, 193. 

Judges, election of, 76. 



212 INDEX 

Judicial power, lacking under Articles of Confederation, 31; 

under U. S. Constitution, 34, 38-39, 40; Judiciary Act of 

1789, 56; over crimes, 59-66. 
Judiciary Act of 1789, 56-57. 
Jurisdiction, U. S. Courts, 38; question as to common law, 59-66. 

Kossuth, Louis, excitement in United States, 86-88. 

Labrador, fisheries, 22. 

Latin-America, relations with, 92. 

Laurens, Henry, peace plenipotentiary, 24. 

Lausanne, seat of Swiss Supreme vjourt, 43. 

Law of nations, 34. 

Law, uniformity, 43. 

Lee, Eobert E., not an owner of slaves, 99. 

Lee, E. H., on Paine 's Common Sense, 15. 

Legal tender, 35. 

Legislative power. Articles of Confederation, 29-31; U. S. Con- 
stitution, 32-36; in Switzerland, 42-43. 

Lerington, Battle of, 14. 

Liberator, newspaper, 101-102. 

Liberty, Political, 13. 

Lincoln, Abraham, opposition to Mexican War, 94; reprobation 
of Abolitionists, 102; election as President, 108; concilia- 
tory efforts, 117; firing on Fort Sumter, 117-118; call for 
troops, 118; proclamation of blockade, 119-121; suspen- 
sion of habeas corpus, 121-124, 126; exercise of extra- 
ordinary powers, 124; object of preserving the Union, 126- 
128; re-election as candidate of Union Party, 128; efforts 
at restoration in Louisiana and Arkansas, 128-129; eman- 
cipation, 129; policy of restoration of seceding States, 
129-130. 

Livingston, Eobert E., Secretary of Foreign Affairs, 21 ; Louisi- 
ana purchase, 154-160. 

Loveii, John, on Committee of Foreign Affairs, 20. 

Madison, James, distinguishes republic from democracy, 55; 
advocates a constitution, 70; anti-slavery sentiments, 98; 
on navigation of Mississippi, 152; message on occupation 
of the Floridas, 161. 



INDEX 213 

Magdalen Islands, fisheries, 22. 

Manifest Destiny, 175-178, 183. 

Mansfield, Lord, decision in Sommersett 's case, 97. 

Marcy, William L., circular on diplomatic dress, 88-89; attempt 

to annex Hawaii, 183. 
Marque and Reprisal, Letters of, 34, 35. 
Marshall, federal influence, 63, 68. 
Maryland, declaration of natural rights, 72; suffrage, 74; 

qualifications for office, 75-76. 
Massachusetts, suffrage, 74; qualifications for office, 75-76; 

status of early Democrats, 89. 
Matthews, Gen. Geo., proceedings in East Florida, 163-166. 
McCardle 's case, 132. 

Meade, Commander, Samoan agreement, 188. 
Merryman, Case of, 122. 
Mexican war, 93, 169-172. 
Midway Islands. See Brooks Islands. 
Militarism, 200-203. 
Militia, 34. 
Mississippi, river, navigation, 26; Spain's exclusive claims, 

152-154. 
Mississippi, State, popular election of judges, 77. 
Missouri Compromise, 105; declared unconstitutional, 107. 
Mole St. Nicolas, lease of, 195. 
Money, regulation of, 34, 35. 
Monopoly, Commercial, 13. 

Monroe, joined with Livingston in Louisiana negotiation, 157. 
Monroe Doctrine, origin, 92; occupation of the Moridas, 161; 

developments since 1860, 137; Venezuelan boundary, 139; 

Santo Domingo, 141; interoceanic canal, 143. 
Moralist, Historical, 5, 11. 

Napoleon, decision to sell Louisiana, 158. 

National Council, Swiss, 43. 

National Union, 22, 26, 28, 32-40. 

Nationalism, spirit of, 47, 90, 94-95; preservation of the Union, 

126-128. 
Natural law, theory of Blackstone, 80. 
Natural Rights, doctrine, 50-52; in State constitutions, 71-72; 

relation to slavery, 97, 102. 



214 INDEX 

Naturalization, regulation, 33-34; treaties, 90. 

Navy, power to provide and maintain, 34. 

Negro supremacy, failure, 133. 

Neutrality, Henfield's Case, 61. 

Newfoundland, Banks of, fishery rights, 22. 

New Hampshire, suffrage in, 74; qualifications for oflBLce, 75-76. 

New Jersey, suffrage in, 74; qualifications for office, 75-76. 

New Mexico, acquisition, 172, 173-175. 

New York, doctrine of natural rights, 72; religious tests, 73; 

qualifications for oflSce, 75-76. 
Nicaragua, Hise treaty, 143. 
Norfolk, Burning of, 14-15. 
North Carolina, doctrine of natural rights, 72; suffrage, 74; 

qualifications for office, 75-76 ; secession, 117, 119. 
Nova Scotia, fisheries, 22. 

Olney, Eichard, Secretary of State, declaration as to Monroe 

l>octrine, 139 ; conservative attitude as to Cuba, 140. 
Optimists, 9, 10. 
Oregon, "recall" of judges, 82. 
Oregon territory, acquisition, 178. 

Pago-Pago, Harbor of, in Samoa, 188. 

Paine, Thomas, Common Sense, 15; secretary to Committee of 

Foreign Affairs, 20. 
Panama, Republic of, 145 ; cession of Canal Zone, 192. 
Patents, 34. 

Peace, Treaty of, with Great Britain, 21-24; non-execution, 26. 
Pennsylvania, doctrine of natural rights, 72; suffrage, 74; 

qualifications for office, 75-76. 
Pessimists, 9, 10. 
Philippine Islands, 148, 183-187. 
Pinkney, William, and Dartmouth College Cose, 69. 
Piracy, 34. 
PoiK, President, and Mexican War, 169-172, 174-175; Oregon 

treaty, 179; Yucatan and the Monroe Doctrine, 138, 139. 
Portugal, and American Eevolution, 17, 18. 
Post Offices, 34. 
Post Roads, 34. 
President, Swiss, 42. 



INDEX 215 

President, United States, powers, 36-37; nomination and elec- 
tion, 70. See Executive power. 
Prize Cases, 116. 
Providentialista, 9, 10. 
Prussia, wars, 197-198. 

Bailroads, federal ownership, Switzerland, 43. 

Recall of judges, 82. 

Reconstruction, Lincoln's policy of restoration, 128; John- 
son's continuance of, 129; change of Congressional atti- 
tude, 129-131; military reconstruction, 131-133; failure of 
negro supremacy, 133-134. 

Religious tests, 73, 74. 

Republic, distinguished from democracy, 55. 

Republican form of government, guaranteed to States, 39. 

Republican party, early, 70; second, fusion during Civil War, 
127-128. 

Restoration, policy of Lincoln and Johnson, 128-129. 

Revolution, American. See American Revolution. 

Revolution, French. See French Revolution. 

Revolutions in South America, 85. 

Rhode Island, suffrage, 74. 

Rights, Natural. See Natural Rights. 

Roosevelt, President, application of Monroe Doctrine in case of 
Santo Domingo, 141; interoceanic canal, 145. 

Rush, Dr., on Paine 's Common Sense, 15. 

Samana Bay, attempt to acquire, 193, 194. 

Samoan Islands, acquisitions in, 187-190. 

San Ildefonso, Treaty of, 155. 

Santa Cruz, Island of. See Danish Islands. 

Santo Domingo, independence, 93; attempt to annex, 193-194; 

Monroe Doctrine, 141-143. 
Sehouler, James, lawyer and historian, 5. 
Schurz, Carl, 91. 

Scott, Dred. See Dred Scott Case. 
Secession, led by South Carolina, 108, 110. 
Seminole war, 167. 

Senate, U. S., result of compromise, 32. 
Sequestration. See Confiscation of debts. 



216 INDEX 

Seward, "W. H., Kossuth banquet, 88 j advocates acquisitions in 
the West Indies, 193. 

Slaughter House cases, 134. 

Slave trade, prohibition, 35. 

Slavery, and Declaration of Independence, 54 j influence on 
foreign relations, 92, 173; Mexican war, 93; controversies, 
96-100; abolitionist agitation, 101-105; principle of bal- 
ance of power, 105; Missouri Compromise, 107; emancipa- 
tion, 129; *' Manifest Destiny," 175. 

Slaves, recovery of, 39. 

Slidell, John, minister to Mexico, 169. 

Social Contract, theory, 50. 

Socialism, 48. 

Sommersett's Case, 97. 

South, sentiment on slavery, 98-101, 103; demand for guaran- 
tees, 104; balance of power, 105. 

South America, revolutions, 85. 

South Carolina, religious tests, 73; suffrage, 74; qualificatioia 
for office, 75-76; initiates secession movement, 108. 

Spain, and American Eevolution, 17. 

St. John, island of. See Danish Islands. 

St. Thomas, Island of. See Danish Islands. 

States, prohibitions upon, 35; decision of controversies be- 
tween, 38; guaranteed republican form of government, 39; 
democratic changes, 71. 

States' Eights, 56, 105. 

Story, Mr. Justice, on jurisdiction of crimes, 63. 

Suffrage, disappearance of restrictions, 72, 75; extension to 
freedmen, 131, 133. 

Sumner, theory of State suicide, 130. 

Sumter, Fort. See Fort Sumter. 

Supreme Court, Swiss, 43. 

Supreme Court, U. S., great services, 28; appointive judges, 
37; jurisdiction, 38; preservative influence, 66, 134; de- 
clares Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, 28, 107; sus- 
tains blockade, 120; prevented from reviewing Recon- 
struction Acts, 132; upholds President Cleveland's action 
in Chicago Strike, 137. 

Swift V. Tyson, Case of, 58. 

Switzerland, federal union, 42, 43. 



INDEX 217 

Talleyrand, and Louisiana, 157. 

Taney, Chief Justice, dissenting opinion in Prize Cases, 120 j 
opinion iu Merryman 's case, 122. 

Taxation, powers of, under U. S. Constitution, 33, 36. 

Taylor, General, and Mexican War, 170-172. 

Territories, powers of Congress over, 39. 

Tests, Religious. See Eeligious tests. 

Texas, annexation, 167-169, 173, 175. 

Thirteenth Amendment, 129. 

Tories, question of compensating, 24. 

Treaties, French alliance, 19, 150; with Great Britain, 21, 26, 
144; with Mexico, 172; with Panama, 192; with Russia, 
181; with Spain, 183-187, 192; naturalization, 90. 

Treaty-making power, sweep of, 37, 136. 

Tutuila, Island of. See Samoan Islands. 

Ultimate verities, 12. 

Unconstitutional legislation, 80; Missouri Compromise, 107; re- 
view of Reconstruction Acts prevented, 132. 

Union, demand for preservation, 126-128. 

Union, National. See National Union. 

Union Party, 127-128. 

United States, characteristics of people, 12-13, 18, 195; early 
boundaries, 21, 151; constitutional powers, 32-42; wars, 
198; arbitration, 198-200. 

Venezuelan boundary, and Monroe Doctrine, 139. 

Vermont, doctrine of natural rights, 72; election of judges by 
legislature, 76. 

Vienna Congress, 90. 

Virginia, declarations of natural rights, 71; suffrage, 75; quali- 
fications for office, 75-76; emancipation movement, 100; 
secession, 108, 117, 119. 

War, power to declare, 34; with Mexico, 93, 169-172; pre- 
ventive measures, 203. 

Wars, of United States, 197-198. See War. 

Washington, George, on Paine 's Common Sense, 15 ; opposed to 
slavery, 98. 



218 INDEX 

Webster, argument in Dartmouth College case, 69; speech ai 

Kossuth banquet, 88 ; nationalism, 94-95. 
Weights and measures, 34. 

West, new States, popular institutions of, 75-76. 
West Florida, 160, 162, 163, 166, 167. 
\vest Indies, Spanish, acquisition, 183-187. 
Wharton, Francis, on federal jurisdiction of crimes, 61; jest 

as to Democrats in Massachusetts, 89. 
Whigs, nomination of Taylor, 94. 

Yucatan, and the Monroe Doctrine, 138, 193. 



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